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REPOET, 



MADE UNDER AUTHORITY 
iW.y:>Vait. 



OF THE 



LEGISLATUEE OF VERMONT, 



ON THE 



lirtifirial f r0pagitti0n 0f Jfisfi, 



^ 



OEOHG^E P. MARSH. 



— - 




BURLINGTON : 
mBB FRBSS FRIIsTT. 

1857. 



SHi& 



ISTo. 101.— JOINT RESOLUTION RELATIVE TO THE 
ARTIFICIAL PROPAGATION OF FISH. 

Resolved^ hy the Senate and House of Representatives, That 
the Governor be requested to enquire into the present state 
of the discoveries which have been made in relation to the 
artificial propagation of fish. Also to enquire whether any, 
and what concurrent legislation of this and other states and 
provinces may be requisite in order to secure to this state 
the benefit of such discoveries ; and the Governor is hereby 
authorized to draw on the Treasurer for any sum, not ex- 
ceeding one hundred dollars, to defray the expenses of such 
enquiry and investigation. 

In House of Representatives, November 15, 1856. 
Bead and adopted. 

NORMAN WILLIAMS, Jr., Assistant Clerk. 

In Senate, November 17, 1856. 
Read and adopted in concurrence. 

C. H. CHAPMAN, Secretary. 



Hon. GEO. F. EDMUNDS, 

Speaker of the House of Representatives. 

Sir : — In conformity with a Joint Resolution adopted at 
the last annual session of the General Assembly, directing 
inquiries to be made into the present state of the discover- 
ies relating to the artificifil propagation of fish, and also 
into the necessity of concurrent legislation of this and oth- 
er States upon that subject, I requested Hon. George P. 
Marsh, of Burlington to make such inquiries. 

I have the honor to transmit herewith to the House of 
Representatives for the use of the General Assembly, the 
Report of Mr. Marsh upon this subject, to which I invite 
the careful attention of the Legislature, relating as it does, 
in my opinion, to a valuable branch of the public economy 
of the State. RYLAND FLETCHER. 

Executive Chamber, ) 
October 13, 1857. \ 

In House of Representatives, October 13, 1857. 
Read and referred together with accompanying documents 
to Committee under Fourth Joint Rule. 

GEO. R. THOMPSON, Clerk. 



In House of Representatives, ) 
October 22, 1857. ] 

Mr. Bradley from tlie Committee under the Fourth Joint 
Rule, made the following report : 

To the House of Representatives now in session. 

The Committee under the Fourth Joint Rule, to whom was 
referred the communication of His Excellency, the Gover- 
nor, concerning the artificial propagation of fish, beg leave 
respectfally to report that they have considered the matter, 
and do not find it expedient, in the present state of infor- 
mation upon the subject, to now legislate in relation thereto. 
At the same time your Committee are of opinion that the 
interests involved are of a magnitude which will require 
protection at some future day, when the wants of the peo- 
ple shall have been fully ascertained ; and that in the 
mean time the diffusion of full and authentic information 
in relation to this interest will make us sure that whatever 
shall be done hereafter w^ill be done wisely and consider- 
ately. Your Committee therefore offer a resolution provi- 
ding for the printing of the said communication of His 
Excellency, with the accompanying Report, and the thorough 
circulation thereof in the State. 

J. D. BRADLEY, /or Committee. 

Resolved, hy the Senate and House of Representatives : 
That fifteen hundred copies of the Governor's communica- 
tion on the subject of the artificial propagation of fish, 
with its accompanying documents, be printed, and that 



6 

three copies thereof be distributed to each Senator, and 
Representative; and that the remainder be distributed 
among the people by the Secretary of State in the manner 
which he shall judge will secure the widest knowledge of 
of the subject ; and the Secretary of the Senate and the 
Clerk of the House are directed to procure the printing of 
said communication and documents. 

In House of Representatives, October 22, 1857. 
Read and adopted. 

GEO. R. THOMPSON, Clerk, 

In Senate, October 22, 1857. 
Read and adopted in concurrence. 

C. H. CHAPMAN, Secretary, 



REPORT. 



TO HIS EXCELLENCY, RYLAND FLETCHER, 
GOVERNOR OF VERMONT: 

The Resolution of the General Assembly, in pursuance 
of which the following Report has been prepared, does not 
appear to contemplate experiment or original observation 
upon the natural or artificial breeding of fish, and the re- 
port will therefore present such facts only as have been 
gathered from foreign and American publications on the 
subject, together with some considerations of a general na- 
ture, which may be thought to have a bearing on the prop- 
er action of the Legislature in reference thereto. 

Man, whether savage or civilized, has a strong passion 
for the exciting and exhilarating 'pleasures of the chase, 
and an irresistible predilection for pursuits which in- 
volve the elements of variety, uncertainty, and chance, over 
the tamer occupations which demand the exercise of regu- 
lar industry, and ofier to their followers not brilliant pri- 
zes, but fixed and humble rewards. Many might, there- 
fore, be disposed to question whether the advantages 
to be derived from the restoration of the quadru- 
peds, the fowls, and the fish, that once filled the forests, 



8 

the atmosphere, and the waters, would not be more than 
counterbalanced by the mischievous influence, which the 
opportunity of indulging in pleasures so seductive as those 
of the sportsman would exert upon the habits of our popu- 
lation. 

But aside from the obvious impossibility of so multiply- 
ing the wild animals of our territory as to affect seriously 
the habitual pursuits, or the graver interests of our people, 
it is believed that any possible evil from this source would 
be more than compensated by collateral advantages, 
of a character not unlikely in the present state of Ameri- 
can society, to be quite overlooked. The people of New- 
England are suffering, both physically and morally, from 
a too close and absorbing attention to pecuniary interests, 
and occupations of mere routine. We have notoriously 
less physical hardihood and endurance than the generation 
which preceded our own, our habits are those of less bodily 
activity, the sports of the field, and the athletic games 
with which the village green formerly rung upon every 
military and civil holiday, are now abandoned, and we have 
become not merely a more thoughtful and earnest, but, it 
is to be feared, a duller, as well as a more effeminate, and 
less bold and spirited nation. The chase is a healthful and 
invigorating recreation, and its effects on the character of 
the sportsman, the hardy physical habits, the quickness of 
eye, hand, and general movement, the dexterity in the 
arts of pursuit and destruction, the fertility of expedient, 
the courage and self-reliance, the half-military spirit, in 
short, which it infuses, are important elements of prosperi- 
ty and strength in the bodily and mental constitution of a 
people ; nor is there anything in our political condition, 
which justifies the hope, that any other qualities than these 
will long maintain inviolate our rights and our liberties. 



The training acquired in the sports of the chase, as ex- 
ercised in England, has been of great value and importance 
to those classes of English society which are possessed of 
the means of participating in it, and in the severe crisis 
through which the British troops passed in the Lite Russian 
war, it proved to be the best preparation for the field and the 
camp, which it is possible for civil life and an age of peace 
to alTord. In a country lil^e ours, of small landed estates, 
narrow enclosures, and rugged surface, the chase could 
never be pursued upon the great scale, which makes it so 
attractive, and so imposing a sport in England ; and it 
must be admitted that angling and other modes of fishing 
are under few circumstances attended with as great moral 
and physical benefits as the pursuit of the largef quadru- 
peds, but they are nevertheless analogous in their nature and 
influences, and as a means of innocent and healthful recrea- 
tion at least, they deserve to be promoted rather than dis- 
couraged by public and even legislative patronage. 

But however desirable it might be, in these and other 
points of view, to repeople the woods and the streams with 
their original flosks and herds of birds and beasts, and 
shoals of fish, it is for obvious reasons, impracticable to 
restore a condition of things incompatible with the necessi- 
ties and the habits of cultivated social life. The final ex* 
tinction of the larger wild quadrupeds and birds, as well as 
the diminution of fish, and other aquatic animals, is every- 
where a condition of advanced civilization and the increase 
and spread of a rural and industrial population. The num- 
ber of wild animals which have been thus altogether or nearly 
extirpated in quite recent times is by no means inconsiderable. 
Within a few centuries, the wolf and the bear, as well as 

some large animals of the deer family, have utterly disap"* 

2 



10 

peared from the British Islands ; the wild ox exists only 
in the parks of one or two great landed proprietors, and 
the cock of the woods, a magnificent bird of the grouse tribe 
scarcely smaller than the turkey, formerly abundant in 
Scotland, had become totally extinct in Great Britain, and 
has only lately been re-introduced from Sweeden ; and the 
fox has been preserved from extirpation only by a public 
opinion which exempts him from ordinary agents of destruc- 
tion, and spares him as the object of a manly sport. 

So on the continent of Europe, the beaver is now so rare 
that he has been forced to relinquish his habits of associated 
life and action, and has become a solitary animal ; the gi- 
gantic wild ox of the German and Slavonic states is confined 
to a single forest in Lithuania, and other large quadrupeds, 
which abounded in central Europe but four or five centuries 
since, are now only known by history and tradition. 

In like manner the moose, the deer, the catamount, the 
wolf, the lynx, the beaver, the vast flocks of pigeons and 
water fowl, and other birds of passage, which bore so im- 
portant a relation to the nutrition and the sports of our 
fathers, are now almost unknown to the natural history of Ver- 
mont, and zoologists observe that the clearing of the woods 
and the complete change in the vegetable products of the 
soil and the insects that feed upon them, have produced 
corresponding changes in the kinds and numbers of those 
smaller animals which being neither valuable for their flesh 
or their peltry, nor obnoxious for their destructive propensi- 
ties, are regarded with interest by few but the scientific 
naturalist. 

It should be observed, however, that the partial or total 
disappearance of many of the smaller birds and land ani- 
mals is not to be ascribed altogether to a diminished sup- 



11 

ply of their natural food, but in no small degree to the 
wanton cruelty of youth, which finds pleasure in the tor- 
ture and death of innocent and defenceless creatures, and 
to a mistaken prejudice which often ascribes mischievous 
propensities to particular birds, quadrupeds, and reptiles 
that in reality, by the destruction of vast numbers of nox- 
ious insects, much more than compensate the little injury 
they inflict upon the crops. The insect in all stnges, egg^ 
larva, chrysalis, and winged imago, enters largely into the 
nutriment of birds and the small quadrupeds, and many 
of those which are popularly supposed to be destructive 
to grass and grain, in fact depend for their sustenance 
almost wholly upon insect life, and are accordingly useful 
as protectors, not injurious as destroyers, of the food of 
man. 

But although we must, with respect to our land animals, 
be content to accept naturae in the shorn and crippled con- 
dition to which human progress has reduced her, we may 
still do something to recover at least a share of the abun- 
dance which, in a more primitive state, the watery kingdom 
afforded. 

The luxurious and extravagant habits of imperial Rome 
first introduced the artificial breeding, or at least feeding 
and fattening of fish, in both salt and fresh water ponds. 
With the overthrow of that empire, its civilization and its 
industry, this practice was discontinued, and the art for- 
gotten. But it was revived in the middle ages by the re- 
ligious observances of the Papal church, which, by deter- 
mining that fish and certain favorite species of water fowl 
were not fleshy and accordingly not forbidden food at sea- 
sons of fasting and mortification, ingeniously contrived to 
reconcile the indulgence of the palate with the discipline of 



12 



I 



Lent. To every favorably situated monastic establish- 
ment was attached a fish-pond, which not only supplied the 
tables of the professed during the prescribed fasts, but often 
yielded a considerable revenue from the sale of fish to 
worldly penitents. The success of the monks led to the 
extension of this branch of industry, and large ponds were 
constructed by laymen, so that in the sixteenth century fish- 
ponds were an appurtenance of most great estates whether 
lay or ecclesiastical. 

It is well known that in the earlier periods of the his- 
tory of Vermont, the abundance of fish in the running wa- 
ters, and more especially in the ponds and lakes of our in- 
terior and our borders, was such as to furnish a very impor- 
tant contribution to the nutrition of a population which the 
cultivated products of the soil were scarcely adequate to 
sustain. Lake Champlain and the Connecticut, as Avell as 
those of their larger tributarios wluse course was not ob- 
structed by cascades, abounded in salmon, and after the 
disappearance of that fish, those important waters, and all 
the streams and ponds of the interior, long continued to 
furnish a liberal supply of difi'erent species of the trout fam- 
ily, and of other kinds hnrdly inferior in value. At present, 
the numbers of the fish in all our waters, as well as of the 
otter, the mink, the muskrat and the water-fowl that fed on 
them, are so much reduced, that this branch of the- animal 
kingdom has ceased to possess any pecuniary value in Ver- 
mont ; and on the contrary the few that remain are popu- 
larly regarded as, in an economical point of view, rather a 
detriment than an advantage, as furnishing a temptation to 
idleness, not a reward to regular industry. The diminution 
■^ of the fish is generally ascribed mainly to the improvidence 
of fishermen in taking them at the spawning season, or in 



13 

greater numbers at other times than the natural increase 
can supply. It is believed moreover, and doubtless with 
good reason, that the erection of sawmills, factories and 
other industriiil establishments on all our considerable 
streams, has tended to destroy or drive away fish, partly by 
the obstruction which dams present to their migration, and 
partly by filling the water with saw dust, vegetable and 
mineral coloring matter from factories, and other refuse 
which render it less suitable as a habitation for aquatic life. 

It is however probable that other and more obscure cau- 
ses have had a very important influence in producino- the 
same result. Much must doubtless be ascribed to the gen- 
eral physical changes proeluced by the clearing and cultiva- 
tion of the soil. Although we cannot confidently afiirm 
that the total quantity of water flowing over the beds of 
our streams in a year is greater or less than it was a centu- 
ry since, or that the annual mean temperature has been 
raised or lowered, yet it is certain that while the spring 
and autumnal freshets are more violent, the volume of wa- 
ter in the dry season is less in all our water courses than it 
formerly was, and there is no doubt that the summer tem- 
perature of the brooks has been elevated. The clearing of 
the woods has been attended with the removal of many ob- 
structions to the flow of water over the general surface, as 
well as in the beds of the streams, and the consequently 
more rapid drainage of our territory has not been checked 
in a corresponding degree by the numerous dams which 
have been erected in every suitable locality. The waters 
which fall from the clouds in the shape of rain and snow 
find their way more quickly to the channels of the brooks, 
and the brooks themselves run with a swifter current in 



14 

high water. Many brooks and rivulets, which once flowed 
with a clear, gentle, and equable stream through the year, 
are now dry or nearly so in the summer, but turbid with 
mud and swollen to the size of a river after heavy rains or 
sudden thaws. The general character of our water 
courses has become in fact more torrential, and this revolu- 
tion has been accompanied with great changes in the confi- 
guration of their beds, as well as in the fluctuating rapidi- 
ty of their streams. In inundations, not only does the 
mechanical violence of the current destroy or sweep down 
jGish and their eggs, and fill the water with mud and other 
impurities, but it continually changes the beds and banks 
of the streams, and thus renders it difficult and often im- 
possible for fish to fulfil that law of their nature which im- 
pels them annually to return to their breeding place to de • 
posit their spawn. 

The gravelly reach which this year forms an appropriate 
place of deposit for eggs, and for the nutriment and growth 
of the fry, may be converted the next season into dry land, 
or on the other hand, into a deep and slimy eddy. The 
fish are therefore constantly disturbed and annoyed in the 
function of reproduction, precisely the function which of 
all others is most likely to be impeded and thwarted by 
great changes in the external conditions under which it is 
performed. Besides this, the changes in the surface of our 
soil and the character of our waters involve great changes 
also in the nutriment which nature supplies to the fish, and 
while the food appropriate for one species may be greatly 
increased, that suited to another may be as much diminish- 
ed. Forests and streams flowing through them, are inhab- 
ited by different insects, or at least by a greater or less 
abundance of the same insects, than open grounds and un- 



15 

shaded waters. The young of fish feed in an important 
measure on the larvae of species which, like the musquito, 
pass one st:ige of their existence in the water, another on 
the land or in the air. The numbers of many such insects 
have diminished with the extent of the forests, while other 
tribes, which, like the grasshopper, are suited to the nour- 
ishment of full grown fish, have multiplied in proportion to 
the increase of cleared and cultivated ground. Without 
citing further examples, which might be indefinitely multi- 
plied, it is enough to say that human improvements have 
produced an almost total change in all the external condi- 
tions of piscatorial life, whether as respects reproduction, 
nutriment, or causes of destruction, and we must of course 
expect that the number of our fish will be greatly affected 
by these revolutions. 

The unfavorable influences which have been alluded to \ 
are, for the most part, of a kind which cannot be removed 
or controlled. We cannot destroy our dams, or provide 
artificial water-ways for the migration of fish, which shall 
fully supply the place of the natural channels ; we cannot 
wholly prevent the discharge of deleterious substances from 
our industrial establishments into our running waters ; we 
cannot check the violence" of our freshets or restore the flow 
of our brooks in the dry season ; and we cannot repeal or 
modify the laws by which nature regulates the quantity of 
food she spontaneously supplies to her humbler creatures. 

It is therefore not probable that the absolute prevention 
of taking fish at improper seasons, or with destructive im- 
plements, or indeed that any mere protective legislation, 
however faithfully obeyed, would restore the ancient abun- 
dance of our public fisheries, though such measures might 
no doubt do much to render them somewhat more produc- 



16 

tive than they at present are, if the legal and moral power 
of the legislature to enact and enforce appropriate laws on 
this subject were somewhat greater. 

Although the fortieth section of the Constitution of Ver- 
mont, which secures to the people of the State certain 
rights of hunting and fishing, entrusts the General Assem- 
bly with a large discretion in the regulation' of those rights, 
yet is it not clear that the Legislature possesses all the pow- 
er required for the complete protection even of an experi- 
mental public fish-breeding establishment, and the State 
certainly at present has title to no suitable localities for 
such a purpose. Besides this, the habits of our people are 
so adverse to the restraints of game-laws, Avhich have been 
found peculiarily obnoxious in all countries that have adop- 
ted them, that any gzmral logisla'ioi of this ch:\raoter 
would probably be found an inadequate safeguard. But 
however this msiy be, the difficulties of a co-operation with 
other States by concurrent legislatitm seem, for the present at 
least, insuperable. The subject is by no means well 
enough understood to enable us to determine the proper 
character of a code so comprehensive as to embrace the 
territory of three or four states, and there is such a differ- 
ence of local conditions between States, one of which con- 
trols the outlet of a great river as well as the entire course 
of many of its tributaries, and another whose jurisdiction 
extends but to the water's edge of the upper portion of its 
current, that the provisions applicable to one could have 
little adaptation to the circumstances of the other. The 
State of Connecticut is in all respects very favorably situa- 
ted for experimenting upon the restoration of salmon and 
shad, and whenever that State and Massachusetts shall have 
adopted protective or promotive systems suited to their res- 



17 

pective conditions, it will be the duty and interest of Ver- 
mont to resort to such co-operative measures as the inter- 
ests and circumstances of the State shall seem to require. 

It is believed that our main reliance in this, as in all 
other matters of economical interest, must be upon the en- 
terprise and ingenuity of private citizens, and that until 
States more advantageously situated for experimentation 
than Vermont, shall have taken the initiative, our legisla- 
tive action should be limited to such further protective 
laws as private establishments may require, and (which is 
earnestly recommended,) the granting of liberal premiums 
for judicious and successful private ejQforts in the restora- 
tion and improvement of the fisheries. 

In many European countries, where restrictive and pro- 
hibitory laws of all sorts are much more rigidly enforced 
than with us, the preservation of land and aquatic game 
has been an object of legislation for centuries, but none of 
these systems have ever been attended with general success, 
and the possessors of great forests and fisheries, whether 
royal or private, every where depend rather upon guards 
and enclosures than upon the terror of the law, for the pro- 
tection of the objects of the chase or the fishery. 

Nor does it sufi&ciently appear that the governmental es- 
tablishments for fish-breeding in France and elsewhere in 
Europe have yet accomplished any very important results 
beyond the supply of spawn to private operators, and, what 
is of more consequence, the furnishing of satisfactory ex- 
perimental evidence that the artificial breeding of fish is 
not only practicable, but may be pursued with advantage 
as a branch of private industry, requiring less labor, and 
not more care or skill, than most other rural employments, 

3 



18 

by any person who possesses a sufficient extent of appro- 
priate territory and water. 

There is little which is new in the methods now followed 
in France, and they are substantially the same as those ori- 
ginally proposed in Germany by Jacobi, and successfully 
pursued by him and his successors for a century, though it 
. is but lately that they have received the attention their 
importance merits. That, with such modifications as dif- 
ference of climate, species, and natural facilities shall re- 
quire, they will be equally successful with us, there is no 
ground for doubt, and the effort to introduce them is well 
worthy of public encouragement. 

As has been already remarked, the fattening, and to some 
extent, the breeding of fish wholly in artificial reservoirs, 
has been long and widely practiced in Europe, and notun- 
frequently in this country, but it is not believed that meth- 
ods, which leave so little to nature can be advantageously 
pursued on a larger scale. Trout thus grown are so infe- 
rior in flavor to fish caught in brooks and mountain lakes, 
that they can scarcely be recognized as belonging to the 
same species, but if hatched, protected, and fed during the 
first year or two in artificial Avaters, and then dismissed to 
seek such food as nature provides, they equal in all res- 
pects naturally bred fish, and may be greatly multiplied in 
number, without any diminution in size, or deterioration in 
quality. The introduction of fish from distant waters, and 
their naturalization in their new homes is also practicable 
to an indefinite extent. Thus the gold fish of China, ac- 
cidentally escaping from artificial reservoirs in this country, 
breeds and thrives in American rivers ; many fish have 
found their way from the Hudson to the Great Lakes, and 
from the lakes to the river, since the opening of the New 



19 

York Canal, and multiplied in both, and it is even said that 
a gentleman in New York has succeeded in so far changing 
the natural habits of the shad, that they pass the •whole 
year and freely breed in his fresh water ponds, without re- 
turning to the ocean, or having otherwise access to salt wa- 
ter. 

The subject of artificial fishbreeding has attracted much 
attention in other States, and many interesting experiments 
have been already tried, or are now in progress, in dif- 
ferent parts of the Union. Printed accounts of these 
are readily accessible, and they are therefore not here de- 
tailed, but it has been thought expedient to append to this 
report an abridged translation of an excellent essay by 
Professor Vogt, of Geneva, in Switzerland, together with 
extracts from a Report to the Legislature of Massachusetts, 
and from the Transactions of the Connecticut State Agricul- 
tural Society. 

It is recommended that a sufficient number of these docu- 
ments be printed for general distribution in all parts of tlie 
State, and it is thought that they, with Fry's complete 
treatise on Artificial Fish-breeding, published in New York 
in 1854, and Garlick's Treatise on the artificial propaga- 
tion of fish, published at Cleveland, Ohio, in 1857, both of 
which may be easily obtained, together with such experi- 
ence as a few trials cannot fail to give, will furnish all in- 
formation necessary to enable any person of ordinary in- 
telligence and possessed of the requisite local facilities, 
(such as clear ponds, or a sufficient extent of the course of 
a perennial brook), to prosecute this branch of in- 
dustry with advantage.* The amount of care, time and 

^ Note. — It deserves to be noticed, by way of suggesting a caution which 
it may be important for us to observe, that the forming of large arti- 
ficial reservoirs, and damming up or otherwise obstructing and diverting the 



20 

money required for commencing and continuing a mode- 
rate breeding establishment in favorable situations, is alto- 
gether insignificant, and would not perceptibly increase the 
labor or the expense of an ordinary farm, while on the oth- 
er hand, our supply of healthy and agreeable diet might be 
greatly augmented, and the general prosperity proportion- 
ally advanced. 

If private persons undertake experiments in the breed- 
ing and rearing of fish, whether for scientific investigation 
or purposes of profit, there is no good reason why industry 
and capital thus employed should not receive the same pro- 
tection as the breeding of any other animal, and it is be- 
lieved that some legislation should be adopted, prescribing 
the same penalties for the taking of fish in waters which 
the proprietor has publicly signified his intention of appro- 
priating to his own exclusive use, as for a trespass or a 
theft committed upon any other personal property. 

It is probably too early to attempt the adoption of legis- 
lative measures for restoring the primitive abundance of 
the public waters of Lake Champlain, but when private ob- 
servation and experiment shall have made the subject more 
familiar, it is to be hoped that means may be devised for 
again peopling them with the lake shad (white-fish,) the 

natural flow of water, has in many instances been found injurious to the health 
of the vicinity by promoting miasmatic exhalations, and that these works 
have in Europe often seriously impeded the drainage of the sol, and other 
modes of physical improvement. The tenacity with which the monks ad- 
hered to their privileged fisheries, long delayed the execution of that most 
interesting and remarkable enterprise, the draining and elevation of the bed 
of the Val di Chiana in Tuscany ; and extensive tracts of the richest soil in 
Sicily are at this moment kept in the condition of barren and pestilential 
wastes by similar causes. 



21 

salmon, the salmon-trout, and numerous other species of 
fish, which formerly furnished so acceptable a luxury 
to the rich, and so cheap a nutriment to the poor of Western 
Vermont, but which now are become almost as nearly ex- 
tinct as the game that once enlivened our forests. 

GEO. P. MARSH. 
Montpelier, Oct. 10, 1857. 



AUTIPICIAL FISH-EHEEDING. 

ABRIDGED FEOM AN ESSAY EY PEOFESSOR KAKL TOGT, OF GENEVA, SWITZERLAND, 



The most general condition of sexual reproduction is the 
concurrent action of the male and female generative ele- 
ments, the former being the spermatic fluid or milt, the latter 
the egg or spawn. With fresh water fish, impregnation is 
effected externally, or after the deposit of the spawn, no ac- 
tual copulation taking place. The female deposits the eggs, 
and the male emits the spermatic fluid upon them. The 
contact of the two generative materials therefore occurs in 
the water. 

Modern investigations have shown that the mere contact 
of spawn and milt does not alone suffice to effect fecundation. 
To ensure the production of a living creature from the egg, 
the active element of the milt, which consists of moving mi- 
croscopic corpuscles, provided with a thread-like tail, and 
called seminal animalcules, must penetrate into the interior 

Note. — It should be observed that the fish mentioned in this essay are 
all European species. These in general bear a considerable, and in some 
instances, as in the trout family, a pretty close resemblance to American 
fish of the same name, in character and habits, but like names are some- 
times applied to fish of totally different families. 

Translator. 



of the egg, and tliere unite with its substance. The en- 
trance of a seminal animalcule into the egg is accordingly 
an essential condition of the development of the latter, 
and every egg is infallibly lost, unless it has thus absorbed 
this constituent of the male generative fluid. 

The perfect eggs of fresh-water fish consist in general of 
an external shell or skin, which sometimes, as in the trout 
family is more firm and elastic, sometimes, as in the Euro- 
pean perch and the white fish (cyprinoids,) more resembles 
coagulated albumen and is viscous upon the surface. In this 
external coating is contained the usually spherically formed 
yolk, enveloped in a thin simple membrane called the vitel- 
line membrane. The yolk itself is always bright and clear, 
sometimes quite transparent and colorless, like water ; 
sometimes of a more yellowish hue, as for example, in the 
eggs of the trout and salmon families, which are of an am- 
ber or orange -yellow color. The yolk consists of two rath- 
er thick fluids, one more albuminous, Avhich upon contact 
with water coagulates and becomes white, like milk, the 
other of an oily consistence, at first appearing in minute 
particles, but in the course of development usually coales- 
cing into a single fatty drop, which on account of its light- 
ness keeps always uppermost when the egg is turned. In 
the trouts, the single oil-drops unite in a stratum or disk 
from which the young is developed, and this upper portion 
of the egg corresponds to the back of the fry. All perfect 
and productive eggs are uniformly bright, clear and trans- 
parent ; milky turbidness in the interior always indicates 
the disorganization of the yolk, and consequently the in- 
capacity of further development. 

The outer coat'of the egg and the vitelline membrane lie 
in close contact so Jong as the spawn remains in the body 



24 

or the ovarium ; but as soon as the eggs are deposited in the 
water, a rapid absorption commences ; the water penetrates 
through the external coating, which swells and distends it- 
self, thus leaving a space between it and the vitelline mem- 
brane in which the yolk floats. This absorption of water is 
facilitated by fine pores or vessels, which traverse the shell 
or outer coat of the egg, and give the surface, under the 
microscope, a shagreened appearance. By mixing with 
the water coloring matter, which is held in suspension by it, 
it may be shown, that every egg, as soon as it is deposited 
in water, becomes, by means of these pores, a centre of 
attraction towards which very slender currents of the fluid 
are directed from every quarter. The absorption is soon 
effected, the egg-shell fully distended, and the space be- 
tween it and the vitelline membrane filled with water. — 
This membrane is impervious to water, so long as the egg 
is in a healthy state, and its contents remain perfectly clear 
and limpid. But the penetration of water into the yolk is 
at once betrayed by its assuming a milky color, which is 
an infallible proof of the unsoundness of the egg. 

Besides these absorbent vessels, which are sometimes 
more, sometimes less, developed, there has been discovered 
in the egg of most fresh- water fish a simple orifice, which 
is certainly connected with the reception of the seminal 
animalcule into the egg. Karl Ernst Von Baer observed 
in the egg of a species of white fish (cyprimis blicca) a 
funnel shaped canal, the function of which he did not de- 
tect, but which is obvious since Professor Bruch has discov- 
ered in the egg of the trout and salmon a small aperture, 
which upon a careful scrutiny is visible to the naked eye as 
a shadowy point, and under the microscope appears as a 
small canal opening funnel- wise upon the surface. A 



25 

similar orifice lias since been observed in the eggs of other 
fish, and investigation has shown, that it is by this passage 
alone that the seminal animalcule penetrates to the interior 
of the egg. 

The seminal animalcule which occurs so abundantly in 
the milt, is pin-shaped, having a round head and a slender 
hair-like tail, and it is by the vibrations of this latter organ 
that it moves in its native fluid. The spawn can be im- 
pregnated only by the reception of the animalcule, and it 
becomes of much practical importance to ascertain how long 
this minute being retains its power of motion and impreg- 
nation. At low temperatures, this power is retained for 
hours and even days, if the milt remains in the organs by 
luhich it is secreted. In the lake of Neufchatel, the Pake, 
a fish of the trout family, is taken during the winter months, 
by night or at sunset. I have often received these fish 
stiff-frozen, and succeeded perfectly in impregnating spawn 
with the milt taken from the genitals of the male the day 
after. But, when once placed in the water, the case is far 
different, and after a very short immersion the power of mo- 
tion is lost, and the form of the animalcule is changed. It 
deserves to be remarked, however, that though simple wa- 
ter kills the milt in a few minutes, the addition of a seven- 
tieth part of sulphate of magnesia to the water maintains 
its vitality for hours. 

Since then the egg completes its absorption rapidly, and 
the currents attracted by it very soon cease, and since the 
seminal animalcules speedily lose their vitality in water, it 
is a matter of great practical importance to perform the 
processes for facilitating impregnation with as little loss of 
time as possible. The best method is doubtless to mix the 
milt with water, and then immediately drop the spawn in- 
to the mixture, aa the attraction arising from the absorp- 

4 



26 

tion of water by the egg serves to direct and facilitate the 
movement of the animalcule toward the orifice, and this 
conclusion is abundantly established by observation. It has 
been found that the number of barren eggs is proportioned 
to the length of time the spaAvn lies unimpregnated, and 
wherever two or more operators work together, so that the 
male and female can be manipulated at the same ti?7ie, and 
the whole process completed in a minute or thereabouts, 
that method is to be preferred. 

To the objection that the process of first emitting the 
milt reverses the order of nature, according to which the 
spawn is first deposited and afterwards fecundated by the 
milt, it is sufficient to reply, that nature compensates the 
hazards and imperfections of this process by providing so vast 
a multitude of eggs, that the failure of a large proportion of 
them is unimportant. It appears that at least one third of 
the spawn fails of impregnation by natural methods, but as 
man's supply is limited, and every healthy egg may be fe- 
cundated, sound economy requires him to take such meas- 
ures as experience has shown effectual in producing the 
largest proportion of young fry. The salmon lays 25,000 
eggs, the pike 100,000, the tench 70,000, the perch 
200,000, the eel-pout 100,000, in a single season, and these 
numbers increase much in proportion to the bulk of the fish, 
so that the sturgeon and other large fish may produce mil- 
lions at one spawning. 

The migrations of fish are prompted solely by the im- 
pulse to • find proper localities for spawning, and for the 
breeding of the young. To deposit their eggs on shallow 
coasts, the herring and the tunny fish annually migrate 
from the deep sea, and a like instinct draws the salmon and 
the shad from the sea into fresh-water rivers, and the trout 



27 

from the lakes to the brooks. The fish, which before wide- 
ly scattered in pursuit of their prey, now assemble in great 
shoals, and proceed to their place of destination, the fe- 
males leading the column, the males following. The whole 
attention of the fish is absorbed by the function of reproduc- 
tion and they run blindly into the nets, which at other times 
they shun. The spawning season therefore furnishes the great- 
est facilities for catching them, and all great fisheries of 
commercial importance, such as those of the sturgeon, the 
salmon, the herring, the cod, the tunny, and the shad, are 
prosecuted almost exclusively at this period. AVith each pa- 
rent, if taken before spawning or emission of the milt, perish 
countless multitudes of the young, and we may justly fear 
the gradual exhaustion even of the abundance of the sea. 
The processes of reproduction are somewhat different in 
the different species of fresh-water fish. The European brook 
trout spawns in the latter part of September or in October, 
according to the season. The female seeks for a suitable 
place, generally in shallow water, on a gravelly bottom, and 
behind some large stone, to deposit her eggs. She is gen- 
erally followed by several males, and she appears specially 
to favor one of these, Avhich tries to drive away the others. 
The eggs are generally laid only by night, and especially 
by moonlight. By a movement of the tail, the female 
scoops out a shallow hollow, and deposits the eggs within, 
it, and the male immediately emits the milt upon 
them. In the course of these movements the spawn becomes 
usually covered with sand, and it is now left to itself. The 
great trout of the Lake of Geneva, which sometimes 
weighs forty pounds, proceeds in the same way. The shal- 
low spots in the Rhone beloAV Geneva, where this trout 
spawns are known to all the fishermen. One of these is 
before my door, and at the spawning season it is easy to 



28 

obseiTe the process. Ecacli female is usually following by 
several males. Tliey play with each other, splashing the 
water, and a deposit of spawn is made from time to time, 
and immediately fecimdated by the male. The Pake in 
the Lake of Neufchatel spawns in December. The fish 
collect in shallow places, keeping in pairs, and at the mo- 
ment of spawning, spring together some feet out of water, 
belly to belly, dropping eggs and milt at the same moment. 
In moonlight nights, wdien many are spawning, the sudden 
shooting of these silvery fish out of the water is a very cu- 
rious spectacle. 

Rusconi, an Italian Naturalist, thus describes the spawn- 
ing of the gudgeon : " As I was admiring a group of trees 
on the shores of the little lake at the Villa Traversi,my at- 
tention was arrested by a noise resembling the strokes of 
a stick or the blade of an oar upon the surface of the wa- 
ter. Looking in the direction whence the sound proceeded, 
I discovered that it was caused by fish in the act of spawn- 
ing. I approached the spot, and, concealing myself in the 
shrubbery, was able to observe the process. It was at the 
mouth of a little brooklet of clear, cold water, but so shal- 
low, that the gravel in its bed was left almost dry. The 
spawning fish swam so swiftly from the lake towards the 
outlet of the brook, that the impetus carried them two or 
three feet up the channel, not leaping, but sliding over the 
gravel. They now, lying on the bottom, where only the 
belly and lower part of the head were covered by the water, 
wriggled the body and tail right and left, thus pressing the 
belly against the gravel. They continued this movement 
seven or eight seconds, then struck the bottom smartly with 
the tail, turning at the same moment and springing back 
into the lake, and soon again repeated the process. Some 
naturalists have maintained that in the act of spawning the 



29 

fish lie upon their sides, so that the belly of the male is in 
contact with, or at least near, that of the female, but in 
the instance I witnessed, there was no such conjunction. 
Each fish entered the rivulet by itself, and deposited spawn 
or milt separately." 

The stickle-back even resorts to nidification. The male 
constructs a round nest of fragments of plants and little 
pebbles, in which the female lays the eggs. Argelander 
gives the following account of the cpawning of the pike. — 
" The male or milter swims by the female or spawner in 
such a way as to keep the ventral orifices of both near to- 
gether. They rub against each other's sides for some time, 
and alternately bend the lower half of the body, still keep- 
ing near each other, with the tails apparently in closer 
proximity than the heads. After some time spent in this 
manner, they bring their bellies into contact by a sudden 
movement, and at the same moment splashing the water 
with their tails, they start forward a short distance, and 
become separated. All this takes place very rapidly, and 
is accompanied with an emission of spawn and milt. As 
soon as the female stops, the male resumes his position by 
her side, and the spawning process is repeated for ten or 
twelve times." 

Most fresh- water fish lay their spawn loose upon the 
ground, covering it with a little sand or gravel. But some, as 
the perch, the sand-eel, and the gudgeon, attach the eggs to 
waterplants or stones, and those of the perch family form 
considerable agglomerations like frog spawn. Perch spawn 
may be readily obtained by sinking willow basket work in 
the spawning places at the proper season, and it will be 
found the next morning covered with spawn usually fecun- 
dated. • 



30 

Much depends on the temperature of the water, both a.s 
respects the period of spawning and the development of 
the egg. Spawning may be deUiyed from a week to a 
fortnight, by transferring the fish to colder water, and the 
hatching of the fry may be accelerated or deferred in like 
manner. The development of the cyprinoids, which takes 
Place in the warmest summer weather, is completed in as 
many days, as that of the trout, which occurs in winter, 
occupies weeks. In the fresh waters of Europe, the spawn- 
ing seasons of different fish take place from March to De- 
cember, and the young are hatched generally in one or two 
weeks in the warm season, and in from four to six in the 
cold. 

The reproduction of the eel is not well understood. It 
is probably oviparous, but the eggs are microscopic. The 
young make their appearance in March or April and at this 
period are found in prodigious numbers at the mouths of 
many rivers in western France and Northern Italy. At 
night fall, immense multitudes of the transparent pin-like 
fry rise to the surface of the water, and swim up stream. 

They are scooped up in fine nets or sieves, and employ- 
ed for pancakes and similar dishes, and thus many millions 
are destroyed every year. 

In considering the processes of nature which take place 
before our eyes, we find numerous causes of destruction 
which may be obviated by human care. I have already 
adverted to the failure of impregnation, and pointed out 
the means of remedying this evil. But the spawn once 
fecundated is still exposed to the depredations of many 
enemies, of which the eel pout is the most destructive. — 
This flat broad-headed fish which always creeps along the 
bottom, feeds chiefly on the eggs of other species. I have 



never taken the eel-pout in the Rhone at the spawning time 
of the trout family, without finding its stomach full of fish 
eggs. But it is not other species alone that prey on the 
spawn. The male trout, if caught at spawning time, will 
always be found with trout-eggs in the intestines, and the 
fishermen and millers of the Rhone affirm that the young 
males follow the larger females, and greedily swallow the 
eggs at the instant of emission, though they do not appear 
to prey upon them when once fairly deposited, as the eel 
pout and groundling do. 

Not less mischieA''ous are the crab, the larvce of some 
insects, the crawfish {Gammanis) and the carp-louse {Ar- 
gulus). It is seldom that we can take a mass of perch- 
spawn from the water without finding upon it carp-lice, 
which perforate the eggs and devour the contents. So the 
water-rat and water-shrew, and all aquatic birds that habi- 
tually muddle the bottom, as geese, ducks, and swans, are 
very dangerous to fish- eggs, especially to those which cling 
to waterplants or are deposited in masses. 

The vegetable kingdom, too, contributes an enemy to fish 
spawn, in a parasitic mildew or fungus, whose sporules at- 
tach themselves to the external coat of the egg, and soon 
throw out long fibres which envelop the egg as with a radi- 
ating net-work and choke the germ. This fungus multi- 
plies with such rapidity that in a short time an entire brood 
is destroyed, and its progress can be checked only l)y the 
immediate removal of every infected egg. Equally inju- 
rious are certain microscopic vegetables of the family of 
the DiatomacecB, as the hacillari<z and the gomphoncmcE, of 
which the familiar brownish slippery slime that coats the 
stones at the bottom of the water is composed. These 
spread only where light penetrates, and hence it is that 



32 

some fisli protect their spawn by covering it, or attaching 
it to the under surface of water-plants. These microscopic 
vegetables are so minute that no sieve is fine enough to ex- 
clude them, and it is consequently important to keep the 
eggs in absolute darkness during hatching. 

If the spawn escapes these many dangers, and is duly 
supplied with water, air, and a proper degree of warmth, 
the fry is soon hatched. The egg must be kept so moist, 
that the outer skin is constantly distended, and the space 
between it and the yolk quite filled with water. This is 
best effected by complete immersion, but this condition is 
not indispensably necessary. A friend of mine had chan- 
ced to leave some trout-spawn on a coarse woolen cloth, 
which was kept constantly wet by the water that dropped 
from a filtering-stone. To his surprise, the eggs developed 
themselves as perfectly as those in the hatching apparatus, 
the supply of air and moisture being adequate. 

Air, or rather the oxygen contained in water, is essen- 
tial. The egg in the process of development respires in 
the same way as the fish in water. It absorbs from the air 
dissolved in the water its oxygen, and gives out carbonic 
acid, and accordingly well water, which contains less oxy- 
gen than river-water, is less favorable to the development 
of the young. For the like reason eggs immersed in water 
which has flowed over other spawn, and thus been deprived 
of some of its oxygen, hatch less rapidly. Whenever, 
therefore, the water is not constantly renewed from a 
running stream, a fresh supply of oxygen must be secured 
by frequently changing the water during the hatching. 

Different species require different degrees of warmth. — 
Thus the eggs of the trout are not destroyed by a freezing 
temperature, whereas they would probably perish at atem- 



33 

perature above 12 degrees (centigrade, equal to about 54 de- 
grees Fahrenheit,) while those of the carp, which require 
greater warmth, would develop very slowly at that degree. 
Upon these points however, precise observation is wanting. 

In practical fish-breeding, two periods are of special im- 
portance in the life of the hatching egg ; one immediately 
after impregnation, the other when the eyes of the young 
begin to be visible through the egg-shell. The first of these 
periods is the most critical, for in spite of every precaution, 
and under circumstances apparently the most favorable, 
there will always be a considerable number of eggs whose 
milky turbidness indicates that they are unsound. It is du- 
ring this period that the foundation of all the organic pro- 
cesses, and of the whole structure of the fish, is laid, and 
the slightest disturbance suffices to defeat success. Great 
care must therefore be observed, and as all agitation is dan- 
gerous, the spawn ought not to be moved during the first 
days of development. 

The black pigment in the eyes, which shows these or- 
gans through the egg-shell as two disproportionately large 
dots, makes its appearance in the latter half of the process 
of hatching, and at this period the egg, with the young it 
contains, will bear rough treatment without injury. While 
observing the developement of an egg under the micros- 
cope, I accidentally dropped the glass capsule containing 
it upon the floor. The egg rolled out of my sight, and was 
found, hours afterwards, in a crack in the floor. It was 
then thrown into the vessel with others, and was the second 
of the whole number that hatched, having been quite unin- 
jured by the fall, and by lying dry at least an hour. If 
then, eggs are to be transported to a distance, or otherwise 
disturbed, they should be moved only during the early part, 
of this period. This power of resistance depends of course 

5 



34 

on the firmness and elasticity of the skin, which diminishes 
before hatching in order to permit the escape of tlie fry, 
and the appearance of the eyes is important as indicating 
the period of the greatest strength of the envelope and the 
ability to bear transportation or other manipulation. 

As soon as the embryo has attained a certain degree of 
development, it bursts the egg shell, which has now become 
weaker and less elastic. It now appears in the form of a 
lengthened perfectly transparent animalcule, which would 
be almost imperceptible in water but for a large sac at- 
tached to the belly, sometimes of a round figure, and some- 
times, as in the salmon and trouts, drawn to a point poste- 
riorly. This sac, which is the yolk, contains the material 
not employed in the growth of the embryo, and which is to 
supply nutriment to the fry during its earliest periods of in- 
dependent life. So long as the yolk-sac remains thus at- 
tached, which is usually about as long as the period of de- 
velopment within the egg, the young lie for the most part 
stationary at the bottom of the water, actively fanning 
with the large pectoral fins, in order to bring a fresh sup- 
ply of water to the organs of respiration. Occasionally, 
they shoot forth, turn round once or twice, sink quietly 
again to the bottom, and hide under the stones and in the 
sand. At this time they take no food. The yolk-sac com- 
municates with the intestinal canal by a short passage, 
through which the remainder of the yolk is gradually ab- 
sorbed by the fish and digested. When the sac is complete- 
ly exhausted, and the belly of the fish has become smooth, 
the appetite for food first appears. The young fry now be- 
come active in the pursuit of prey and nourishment, and 
feed greedily on the smaller aquatic animals, the minute 
larvre of insects, worms and the like, which inhabit the 
water in multitudes. 



35 

The young fish are exposed to a great number of ene- 
mies, especially during the period of repose, immediately 
after their exclusion from the Qgg. Besides the fish and 
the crabs which have been already mentioned, they are 
preyed upon by numerous carniA' orous larvoo of insects, wa- 
ter-salamanders, and aquatic birds, and but a small pro- 
portion of the fry escape these multiplied dangers. 

What then is the proper object of artificial fish-bree- 
ding ? Not indeed to provide new material, for this na- 
ture abundantly supplies, but to make this material available, 
to avert the dangers which threaten it, and to furnish to it 
plentifully the elements it requires for its full development. 
It is absurd to say that we ought to follow the processes of 
nature, and them only. Nature loses more than ninety per 
cent, of the material capable of development which she 
provides, and all her economy is calculated for this propor- 
tion of loss ; the population of the waters, if undisturbed 
by man, would still remain at the same average level, not- 
withstanding this enormous waste. It should be our aim 
to preserve this superabundance of material, and to adopt 
such methods as will secure development and growth to the 
largest possible proportion of it. 

The process of impregnation is simple and obvious. If, at 
the spawning season, fish are simply lifted by the gills, 
eggs or milt will be emitted, but if gentle pressure is ap- 
plied from the head towards the tail, these substances will 
be thrown out in a continuous stream. The finest males 
and females should be selected for breeding, and in the case 
of brook-trout, they should Aveigh from three fourths of a 
pound to a pound. The eggs and milt should be received 
in a shallow vessel containing barely water enough to cov- 
er the eggs expected to be obtained, and a little experience 



36 

will enable the operator to estimate the quantity accurate- 
ly enough. An excess of water is injurious, because it di- 
lutes the milt, disperses the seminal animalcules, and dim- 
inishes the chances of impregnation. 

Success depends much on rapidity of manipulation. The 
fish is seized by the head and held in or over the vessel, and 
the belly is gently squeezed or pressed downwards from the 
head to the ventral orifice. One male will yield milt 
enough to fecundate the spawn of four or five females. — 
If several operators work together, it is best to squeeze the 
milt and eggs into the water at the same time. If there 
be but one operator, and he has acquired such dexterity 
that the process can be very rapidly gone through with, he 
should, for reasons given above, first squeeze the milt and 
then the spawn into the water, but if, from the size and 
weight of the fish, or want of practice in manipulation, the 
process is more slowly performed, it is better to squeeze 
the spawn first into the water. The milt and spawn hav- 
ing both been received in the vessel, the water should be 
stirred a little with the hand, in order to effect a more per- 
fect contact between the milt and the eggs, and the vessel 
should then be left to stand for an hour in a temperature 
about equal to that of the running waters in which the fish 
naturally spawn. • The impregnation is now completed, 
more thoroughly than by mere natural processes, and the 
probability is that the greater part of the eggs will hatch. 

Next comes the hatching, which requires the close atten- 
tion of the breeder. The essential points are the condi- 
tions above mentioned of an abundant supply of well 
aerated water at a proper temperature, removal of unsound 
eggs, and protection against the dangers Avhich have been 
adverted to. Fish of the trout family are the most sus- 



cci^tiblo and delicate of all. They require the purest wa- 
ter, as well aerated as possible, and to this end it should be 
frequently changed. The current of a running spring, a 
stream from a brook or a river, or pure water from a lake 
or pond, if often changed and kept in motion, will serve. — 
The more abundant the supply, and the more constant the 
change of water full of pure air, the better. 

With respect to protection from external enemies, it may 
be remarked, that ravenous fish, crabs, and spawn-eating 
insects may be excluded by a wire net work or sieve, or 
other similar contrivance, but the microscopic sporules of 
the parasitic mildew, which so soon destroy the egg and 
spread so rapidly through the spawn, cannot be kept out by 
the finest sieve or even by a filter. The spawn must there- 
fore be so placed that it it can be very frequently exam- 
ined, and infected eggs at once extracted. This is most 
conveniently done with a pair of tweezers or small forceps. 
The eggs should be carefully inspected twice a day, and 
every one that shows the best sign of disease, the least de- 
gree of whitish turbidness forthwith removed. The purest 
unfiltered water, when left at rest, deposits fine particles, 
and it is well to free the spawn daily from any accumula- 
tion of such particles by passing over it a soft hair pencil, 
because the sporules of mildew, the most dangerous of all 
enemies, often lurk in these deposits. 

As to the hatching apparatus, it may be said that any is 
good which admits a free circulation of water, excludes 
rapacious enemies, and permits ready access to the eggs, 
and the easy removal of such as are infected. The method 
of Mr. Knoche, of Coverden in the Electorate of Hesse is 
as follows : 

"For a breeding chest I employ a stone trough seven 
feet long, two feet broad, and one foot deep, and provided 



38 

with a wooden cover fitting into a rabbet and secured by a 
lock. To one end of the cover is nailed a frame whose 
length is equal to the breadth of the cover, namely two feet, 
and which is four inches wide and four inches deep. With- 
in the frame several holes are bored through the cover to re- 
ceive the water which is supplied from above. To exclude 
impurities, insects, and other small animals of prey, a piece 
of coarse linen cloth is nailed over the frame, and all the 
water which enters the trough is, of course, strained through 
this cloth. Within the breeding trough there is a 
perforated box, which distributes the water received from 
the frame evenly and quietly through the trough. At the 
opposite end of the trough, six inches above the bottom, 
are two square holes covered with finely perforated tin plate 
and so adjusted as to permit the escape of the same quan- 
tity of water as is admitted through the frame. The trough 
is sunk in the ground near a spring, wdiich is raised by a 
dam to the height of a foot, and the water is conducted di- 
rectly to the middle of the frame on the cover of the trough 
through a pipe about an inch and a half in diameter. The bot- 
tom of the trough is filled up to the depth of three inches with 
clean washed sand or gravel, and the water always stands 
three inches deep on the sand. When the eggs are intro- 
duced the flow of water from the spring is shut off, 
and the impregnated spawn, after standing three hours, is 
carefully poured into the trough, and so distributed that the 
eggs are not in contact with each other. The distribution 
is affected, without touching the eggs, by agitating the water 
over them with the bearded end of a quill. The trough is 
now closed and left undisturbed for twelve hours, after which 
the water from the spring is admitted again and kept re- 
gularly flowing for six wrecks." 



The sand or gravel which Jacobi and his successors em- 
ploy as a bedding for the spawn, is altogether superfluous, 
and is moreover objectionable, because it obstructs the ex- 
amination of the eggs and the removal of unsound or mil- 
dewed ones. A stone or other hard bottom is to be pre- 
ferred. 

In order to show how much the process may be varied in 
conformity to conditions of necessity or convenience, I 
will mention two methods employed by Drs. Mayor and 
Duchosal of Geneva. In some of their experiments they 
used the common drinking water which is raised from the 
Rhone into a great reservoir by machinery, and then dis- 
tributed through the city in pipes. A frame resembling the 
stepped stands used for flower pots, was placed under a lead 
aqueduct pipe with a stream a finger's breadth in diameter. 
The eggs were deposited in square earthen pots, wdiich w^ere 
arranged on the steps of the frame. Each pot had a small 
aperture in front, into which was introduced a pipe to con- 
vey the water to the pots of the next tier below, and in all 
the pots the water was kept one inch deep. The aqueduct 
pipe was pierced with holes corresponding to each pot of 
the upper tier. These pots, which were about a foot square, 
received a constant stream of about a line in diameter di- 
rectly from the aqueduct pipe, and the lower pots received 
their supply from the tier next above, respectively. The 
eggs hatched equally well in all, but from the partial ex- 
haustion of the air in the water in passing through the up- 
per tiers, the eggs in the lower tiers were somewhat long- 
er in hatching. 

In anather case, they employed a different process in the 
current of the Rhone. The eggs were deposited in deep, 
flat-bottomed eartjien pots, with holes in the sides an inch 



40 

above the bottom, which admitted a free circulation of riv- 
er water. The pots were inserted in small floats or rafts 
made of a couple of boards, covered lightly, and left to 
float in the river. The floats were secured by a cord, and 
the pots could thus be drawn to the bank at any time for 
examination and the removal of mildewed eggs. The suc- 
cess of the experiment was perfect. The boxes proposed 
by Jacobi, and the wicker-work of willow or wire recom- 
mended by others, have been employed with equally favor- 
able results, but they are not so easily handled as pots with 
smooth, yellow-glazed bottoms, which enable the operator 
readily to see and remove defective eggs. 

During hatching, the breeder has nothing to do but to 
see that water is regularly supplied and the mildewed eggs 
picked out ; and if the apparatus is conveniently arranged, 
it will not require more than an hour daily, at the commence- 
ment of the process, to inspect 100,000 eggs, and remove 
the infected ones. At a later stage, even less time is de- 
manded. 

So, after the exclusion of the young from the eggs, so 
long as the yolk-sac still remains attached to the abdomen 
of the fry, little attention is required of the breeder. It is 
well to remove the brood to a larger receptacle, as for ex- 
ample a long trough with one or two feet of water, to allow 
them space for their occasional movements. If the number 
of fish is large, as in a governmental establishment, a system 
of shallow canals should be employed, supplied with water 
from a running stream and lined and paved with flat tiles, 
brick or other materials, so as to prevent the growth of wa- 
ter-plants, and keep the bottom smooth and clean ; for such 
plants are lurking places for all the insects, and other small 
animals which prey on the young fry. While the yolk- 
sac holds out, the young subsist in the pots, troughs, or 



41 

canals, without other food. In large rivers, ponds or lakes, 
whore the flow of the Avater cannot be controlled, and of 
course floating apparatus must be resorted to, the breeding 
trough of Jacobi is to be recommended. This is a box of 
convenient length and breadth, and about a foot in depth, 
provided with a strong cover made removable for the inspec- 
tion of the fry, and with a fine w^ire net- work at each end 
to admit Avater Avithout alloAving the escape of the young. 
The bottom of the box is loaded, so that it floats horizon- 
tally in the Avatcr, and it is so anchored or moored that 
the current may enter at one end and pass out at the other. 
A box six feet long and tAvo Avide alloAvs space enough for 
6000 young fish. In still or slowly flowing ponds or rivers, 
the dimensions should be greater and the water may be 
changed, and made to circulate through the box by drawing 
it occasionally to and fro by the mooring cord. 

The most laborious period for the breeder begins Avhen 
the young fish have exhausted the yolk-sac, Avhich Avith the 
brook-trout is about four weeks after hatching, with the 
salmon about six. The fry must now be fed, and their 
food must be furnished in portions so small that these mi- 
nute creatures can master it, and it should, moreover, be in 
a form that has the appearance of life or at least motion. 
They also require increased space for motion and feeding, 
for every one appropriates to himself certain limits, with- 
in Avhich he usually remains and hunts for prey. Shell- 
crabs, and crab-fleas, the larva3 of small insects, as snails, 
musquitoes and Avater-flies, form their principal natural nu- 
triment. Such food may indeed be supplied to artificially 
bred fish, for every brook and pond abounds Avith it, 
but Avhen some thousands are to be fed, it is obvious that a 
method Avhich might succeed Avith a small number is im- 

6 



42 

practicable. Where however, all the natural conditions are 
favorable, the young may be left to feed themselves in suit- 
able reservoirs. Knoche admits the young fry into a care- 
fully cleansed pond supplied by a spring, and at tl\e end of 
a year, when they have attained the length of six inches, 
he finds half the original number, the rest having perished 
or escaped. The fish in this case are left quite to them- 
selves, unfed, and exposed to all the dangers wdiich beset 
them in natural ponds. For trout, a winding brook would 
be better than a pond, and the loss of fifty per cent, would 
be more than compensated by the saving of time, cost, and 
labor. 

But where the natural facilities do not exist, where the 
breeder can command but little Avater, and artificial ponds or 
canals only, feeding becomes necessary, and for this the re- 
fuse from slaughter-houses is particularly well suited. 
Small salmon and trout devour coagulated blood with avid- 
ity, particularly if it is forced through a syringe, so as to 
give it a worm-like appearance. Fragments of meat, the 
flesh of animals which die from disease or accident, or of 
white fish, which can sometimes be had in great abund- 
ance, are also greedily consumed, especially if the fibres 
are well separated by boiling, and then the whole beaten 
fine in a mortar, or grated. Boiled or dried flesh thus pre- 
pared, and scattered on the w^ater, divides, in sinking, into 
fine threads resembling worms, which are eagerly swallowed 
by the fry. 

It has also been proposed to breed fish of inferior sorts, 
to supply food for the more valuable kinds, particularly the 
trout. But this method is sometimes attended Avith unfore- 
seen difiiculties. It is true that young salmon and trout 
greedily seize upon freshly hatched pike, and easily swal- 
low them. As the pike spawns in March, and hatches its 



43 

young in April, and the trout have then just dropped the 
yolk-sac, and are beginning to seek for prey, this method 
furnishes them with a. suitable and natural diet. It may 
therefore be employed on a small scale with advantage. — 
But in larger operations, some of the pike will be sure to 
escape their pursuers, and, the next year will prey in their 
turn on the trout. In our experiments in the Khone, it 
sometimes happened that a few yearling perch found their 
way into the feeding basin, which was about six feet deep, 
twelve wide, and twenty long, and they committed great 
ravages on the young fry before they were discovered and 
caught. The breeding of white-fish for food the first year 
is objectionable because they do not spawn early enough to 
furnish nutriment to the young salmon and trout at the pe- 
riod when it is most wanted ; and in fact the only fish 
which spawn at the right season for this purpose are those 
which, like the pike and the eel-pout, become dangerous 
enemies the second season. In large establishments, how- 
ever, the smaller kinds of white-fish, which do little injury 
to the eggs or the young of other species, may be advan- 
tageously bred as food for trout which have reached their 
second year. 

Very erroneous opinions have been maintained with re- 
spect to the growth of young fish. The author of an es- 
say on artificial fish-breeding in Cotta's Quarterly (1856 
No. 1) cites from a Scotch source some very fabulous obser- 
vations, according to which, salmon hatched in the Tay, 
marked and allowed to escape to sea when they had grown 
to the weight of an ounce, had been caught on their return 
to the river two months afterwards, and found to weigh 
from five to five and a half pounds. The author of the ar- 
ticle in question is quite right in hesitating to swallow so 



44 

palpable a liumbug as this. The absurdity of such state- 
ments will more clearly appear from the experiments of my 
friend, Dr. Mayor, on sea-trout. The fish in this case were 
kept and abundantly fed in a spacious basin communicating 
with the Rhone, and it was established by sufficient obser- 
vation that their growth corresponded to that of salmon 
bred naturally in the river itself. Dr. Mayor observes : 

" Sixty eggs of the sea-trout weigh a quarter of an 
ounce, and accordingly a single egg weighs two grains and 
two fifths, and a pound contains 3,840. The spawn of a 
sea-trout of sixteen pounds weighs about -four pounds, and 
contains of course, 153G0 eggs. The fish are taken at the 
wier at Greneva, only on their return to the sea after spawn- 
ing (when they still retain their fine flavor,) and from the 
known number of those so taken we may estimate the total 
number of the eggs deposited at about three millions. A 
newly hatched sea-trout weighs two grains and one third, 
rather more than the egg^ and the weight remains stationary 
during the gradual absorption of the yolk-sac, which occu- 
pies six weeks. The subsequent growth will appear from 
the following table. 

Date of weighing. Period after hatching. Weight in grains. Length. 
May 28 77 days 8 9-10 of an inch. 

June 6 86 " 15 

" 18 98 " 18 

August 13 154 " 66 

September 1 173 " 67 

21 193 " 95 3 inches. 

October 15 217 " 146 

November 24 257 " 151 

December 3 268 " 160 5 inches. 

*• In the autumn of 1854, sea-trout were taken in the 

open Rhone measuring seven inches in length and Aveighing 

two ounces, which were evidently hatched in the spring of 

the preceding year, and of course were eighteen months 

old. 



45 

*' Sea- trout of two years, caught iu the Rhone at the 
same point in the spring of 1855, measured about eight 
inches in length, and weighed from two and one third to 
three and one third ounces. 

" The natural bred trout taken in the open Rhone are 
neither longer nor heavier than those bred iii basins ; but 
there are great discrepancies in the growth of these fish, 
according to the abundance or scarcity of their food. A 
trout was taken on the 24th of November weighing 40 
grains only, but which belonged to a brood that generally 
weighed 150 grains." 

It is not necessary to speak further of the care of the fry 
after the age of a year, but whenever the breeding of fish 
shall be carried on upon a large scale, it will be necessary 
to have a series of ponds, or artificial divisions of running 
streams, for keeping the broods of each year by themselves, 
until they are of a proper age for market, because the fish 
which it is most desirable to breed, as the pike and the trout 
prey upon the younger and weaker of their own species. 

It is important to determine what particular species 
should be selected for artificial breeding. If it is consider- 
ed as a question of profit, it is obvious that we should breed 
the kinds most valued in the particular market for which 
they are bred, which command the best price, and which 
are best accommodated to the natural or artificial conditions 
at the disposal of the breeder. If fish from distant locali- 
ties promise a better return than the native species, they 
should be introduced, but on this point no precise rules 
can be laid down, and experience alone can be a safe guide. 
The fishermen of Comacchio, who breed with advantage 
millions of eels in their lagoons, would greatly err in ex- 
changing them for sea-trout, as would the inhabitants of 
the shores of the Lakes of Geneva, and Ncufchatel, in 



46 

abandoning the trout for the eel, which there is ahnost 
vakieless. So it woukl he a mistake to attempt the breed- 
ing of eekpouts or sheat-fish (cat-fish) whicli indeed grow 
rapidly, but whose value would by no means compensate 
the mischief they do by destroying the eggs and young of 
other species. ' In fact artificial breeding must be confined 
to a few species which combine the necessary advantages. 

First of all, rank the fish of the trout- family ; as the sal- 
mon, the sea, the river, brook and lake trouts and the 
grayling. Trouts require clear shaded water, with a sandy 
or gravelly bottom, and of low mean temperature. Brooks, 
rivulets and clear mountain lakes are particularly well suited 
to them. A muddy bottom is particularly obnoxious, and 
they are more readily affected than any other fish by impu- 
rities in the water, such as salts, dye-stuffs and other refuse 
from factories, and the sooty dust and acrid fluids from gas 
works. 

For still waters, deep and clear ponds, the lamprey is 
well adapted, particularly as some of the varieties of this 
fish may be advantageously pickled or smoked. Some of 
the species preserved by these methods are important arti- 
cles of commerce in all the German States. Indeed almost 
every climate and every locality has fish which maybe mul- 
tiplied and bred with profit, and experience alone can decide 
what native or foreign species best reward the care and cost 
bestowed upon their propagation. 

The introduction of new fish from remote localities, is, 
with the present rapidity of communication, extremely 
easy. As before observed, the proper period is when the 
eyes of the embryo first become visible through the egg- 
shell. At this time, the young fish occupies in the egg the 
smallest space into which it can be comi^ressed ; the tough 
outer skin or egg-shell which encloses it, is a much better 



47 

protection against external violence than the tender skin of 
the newly hatched fry, and the development of the embryo 
has already progressed so far that it is not likely to be 
checked by the ordinary accidents of transportation. The 
only special precautions required are those which secure a 
due supply of air and moisture. The eggs might be trans- 
ported in vessels filled with water but for the necessity of 
frequently changing the w\ater, which can dissolve but a 
small proportion of air. The simplest and most convenient 
method is to pack the spawn in alternate layers with sub- 
stances which retain moisture long, such as fine sand, aqua- 
tic plants, or shaggy woollen cloths, in wooden or tin boxes 
Avith covers perforated for the admission of air. The bot- 
tom of the box being covered Avith a layer of such mate- 
rial properly moistened, the eggs should be spread over it 
in such manner as not to touch each other, then another 
layer of moistened cloth, weeds or sand, and then eggs 
again, and so on till the box is full, taking care to cover 
the whole with a layer of the moist substance. For dis- 
tances not exceeding forty eight hours, soft aquatic plants 
form the best bedding, but if a longer time is required, 
batting or cloth is preferable, because the commencement 
of decomposition in the water-plants might, in that case, be 
injurious to the spawn. During the journey, eggs thus 
packed require no attention, and as salmon spawn kept for 
two months, in a box of wet sand, in a cold chamber but 
with a temperature above freezing, still retains its capa- 
city of development, it is evident that it may be transport- 
ed not only throughout Europe, but to North America. It 
must be observed, however, that this applies only to fish, 
which, like the trout family, spawn in the Vv-inter, and require 
a long period for hdtching, and it should be particularly re- 



48 

membered that after a long transportation by this method, 
the eggs must be gradually admitted to a full supply of 
water, as they will otherwise be injured by a too rapid ab- 
sorption of that fluid. 

The gOYernmental establishments of Huningen in France, 
and Munich in Bavaria — furnish fish- eggs at the following 
rates per thousand. 

Hiiningen. Munich. 

Ombre chevalier, (sahiilet,) $1,37 $1,20. 

Danube salmon, 1, ,80. 

llhine " 1, 1,00. 

Lake " 1,17 1,00. 

Trout, ,75 ,80. 

Graylings, ,75 ,40. 

Sturgeon, 1,17 

The transportation of living fish, young or full-grown, 
should not be attempted. Not that with a sufficient ex- 
penditure of cost and labor it is impracticable, but the ex- 
pense and trouble are out of all proportion to the results. 
Monsieur Valenciennes contrived by great effort to send a 
dozen living fish from Germany to Paris, but they were of 
species no way superior to kinds already abundant in France, 
and it appears that they perished at last without leaving 
any progeny behind them. 

That the acclimation of fish is practicable, the ancients 
proved by introducing upon the coasts of Italy new species 
from the Black Sea and the JEigenn, and there are modern 
examples of similar success. To what extent the naturali- 
zation of foreign fish can be carried, time and experiment 
alone can determine, but in any case success is much more 
likely to be attained by transporting the spawn than by 
transferring living and especially full grown, fish which 
have already become accustomed to the peculiar conditions 
of their native locality. 



49 

But what has already been accomplished in artificial 
breeding, and what further important results remain to be 
hoped for ? 

As to the success of private operations, where the breed- 
ing is artificially conducted from the spawning to the mar- 
ket, an opinion may be formed from the following state- 
ment by Mr. Knoche . 

" For the last six years, I have hatched annually about 
eight hundred fish from a thousand or twelve hundred eggs. 
At the end of a year from hatching, I seldom find more 
then half that number in the pond, the rest having perish- 
ed or escaped, most probably the latter, because it is very 
difficult to make a pond so tight, that the fry cannot sometimes 
pass out at either the inlet or the outlet of the water. My 
fish in general thrive well, and for the last three years my 
ponds have supplied annually from three to four hundred 
three and four year old artificially bred trout, those of the 
latter age weighing from three quarters of a pound to a 
pound." 

But a much wider application of the process of artificial 
breeding is suggested, and it is proposed to extend it to 
species which rerpiire great space, wdiich annually migrate, 
and like the salmon the sturgeon, and the shad, alternately 
inhabit salt water and fresh. For this purpose private en- 
terprise can only be made available in the few cases where 
individuals control large fisheries, like those of some Brit- 
ish proprietors. To Lord Grey, whose salmon-fishery in 
the river Tay, yielding an income of four thousand pounds 
sterling in 1830, but in 1853 had fallen to less than two 
thousand pounds, it was a matter of very serious interest 
to find some means of bringing up his revenue to its for- 
mer amount, and the expense of impregnating some mil- 

7 



50 

lions of eggs every year bore no proportion to the expected 
profits. In fact many proprietors in England and Scotland 
have succeeded by artificial breeding, in bringing salmon 
to spawn in rivers and brooks which they had never fre- 
quented before, for the salmon, like the rest of the trout 
tribe, return to spawn in the waters where they were 
bred. 

The most important advantage to be hoped from artificial 
breeding is the re-stocking of rivers or shores where the 
fishery is public, and here only governments or public as- 
sociations can act. The French government has set the ex- 
ample by founding an establishment at Huningen, the 
practical working of which it is not easy to ascertain. — 
While M. Coste considers it in all respects successful, and 
affirms that it not only can, but actually does, breed mil- 
lions of fish every year, others describe it as little more than 
a miserable shanty, with a few boxes of eggs and a couple 
of dozen of miniature fish, an object of ridicule to its very 
managers. The truth doubtless lies between these ex- 
tremes of exaggeration. The arrangements themselves are 
unquestionably excellent, and perfectly adapted to the na- 
tural conditions of the locality, as is also the establishment 
of Count Curzay near Paris for those of that region. But 
as a curse seems to rest on all governmental industrial un- 
dertakings, especially in France, we may well imagine that 
the establishment at Huningen will fail to add the expected 
millions to the national resources of the French Empire. 

From the similar attempts which are making elsewhere 
there seems no ground to expect great immediate results. — 
Fish are of slow growth, and fisheries in open and public 
waters are exposed to many fluctuations and contingencies, 
the causes of which are not well understood, and it is hence 



51 

obvious that the fruits of a general system of artificial 
breeding can be estimated only after the lapse of a con- 
siderable period. As an illustration of the extent of these 
fluctuations, I may mention that the great city weir at 
Geneva furnishes during the three months from November 
to January inclusive, in average years, twelve hundred 
pounds of sea-trout. In the year 1853 not one hundred 
weight was taken. There was naturally a general com • 
plaint of the decay of this fishery and the increasing scar- 
city of fish in both the lake of Geneva and the river Rhone, 
but the abundant fishery of the following year showed that 
the supposition of a permanent decrease of fish was without 
foundation. We cannot then, so long as such unexplained 
fluctuations exist, draw any safe conclusions from the ex- 
perience of a few years. 

In conclusion, we can only recommend perseverance in 
experiment, and especially a sound discretion in the selec- 
tion of the species to be bred, whether native or foreign, 
with reference to the ultimate profit to be derived from their 
multiplication or naturalization. The general duty of gov- 
ernments is plain. The mere prohibition of particular im- 
plements of destruction at particular seasons effects little. 
The more severe the penal restrictions are, the more 
unpopular they become, and the more likely they are to be 
disregarded. Governments should found breeding estab- 
lishments under the direction of competent scientific men, 
in order that their experiments may be conducted with due 
precision, and liberal measures should be adopted for the 
general diffusion of the fullest information on the subject 
among the people. The public establishments should fur- 
nish at reasonable rates eggs of the best species for breed- 
ing, and should keep always on hand a sufficient stock of 



young fish of different ages to illustrate the processes of 
breeding and rearing in all their different stages. With 
such measures, there can be no doubt that results will fol- 
low analogous in character and importance to those which 
have been accomplished in the breeding of domestic land 
animals and in other branches of rural industry. 



APPENDIX. 



DOCUMENTS KEFERRED TO IN THE PRECEDING REPORT. 



Extract from a Report to the Legislature of Massachusetts. May, 1857. 

-* # ^r ^ * # # 

For further information contained in books on the subject, the Commis- 
sioners would refer to various numbers of Silliman's Journal of Science ; 
especially to the numbers for May, July and September, 1853, May and 
July, 1855, and March and May, 1856. The Scientific Annual by D. A. 
Wells, also contains, in several of the volumes, brief articles on the subject. 
We also found an article on Pisciculture in the Revue des Deux Mondes for 
June 15, 1854, by Jules Haimes, containing an excellent history of the sub- 
ject, with many valuable observations. Not having leisure to translate it, 
the task was kindly undertaken and performed by Mr Gamaliel Bradford. 
As the publication of this article appears to us to be desirable in order that 
full information may be spread before the public, we transmit it herewith, 
in order that the Legislature may make such use of it as they may think 
proper. 

Several years since, a work was published in Prance by M. Coste, from 
which the American writers have derived much of their information. A 
new and improved edition of that work was published in 1856, but we be- 
lieve it has not been translated. It can be easily obtained through import- 
ing booksellers. Its instructions, in respect to the transportation offish for 
breeding, the transportation of spawn, the preparation of spawning beds, and 
the keeping of fish in inclosures, deserve attention. 

The report of M. Millet to the Soeietie Imperiale Zoologique d'acclimata- 
tion, in March, 1856, contains valuable suggestions in respect to the plant- 
ing of trees on the borders of streams where fish are raised. 

In France, the artificial propagation of fish was commenced by two illiter- 
ate fishermen a few years ago. Their wonderful success soon attracted the 



notice of men of Bcience, and afterwards of the government ; and it Is now 
regarded as a matter of great public concern. Information has been col- 
lected and experiments have been made at the public expense in respect to 
every variety of valuable fish, to be found in their fresh waters, and very 
recently, attention has been directed to the multiplication of various species 
of marine fish, on and near the sea shore. It is found that the supply of 
food from this sourcD can be greatly increased. 

In this country, the supply of food is so abundant, that the preservation 
and improvement of the fisheries in our fresh waters has been much neglect- 
ed. The increase of our population for half a century or a century to come, 
will be likely to give to them a new importance. Even now, we have found 
a much greater interest in them than we had supposed to exist. 

Massachusetts abounds in streams suitable for trout ; and from many of 
them, large quantities are taken every year. But there are very few in- 
stances, where the o.\nors of the lands over which the streams flow, take any 
pains to preserve or to nialtiply their stock of fish, or even to claim them as 
their property. An implied license is given to all persons to fish at their 
pleasure. Hence the stock of fish is greatly diininisheu and very few fishes 
grow to their lull size. They are not regarded by their owners as valuable 
property, and fishing is pursued as a mere pastime. 

Bat this state of things cannot last long. As wealth increases, trout are 
sought as a luxury, and they have already acquired a market value so great 
that the proprietors of streams might profitabl}'' raise them for market. 
There are many persons who need rural exercise, and who would cheerfully 
pay a liberal lent to the proprietors of a stream, well stocked with trout, 
for the exclusive right of fishing. We believe there are many farms on the 
hilly and mountainous parts of Massachusetts, containing trout streams, 
that, with a little pains, might be made to yield a greater income in this 
way than the land itself. Much might be done to increase their value with- 
out resortin ; to artificial breeding. The preparation of suitable ponds or 
pools of deep water, and -of gravelly beds, suitable for spawning, with slight 
guards tj prevent the des ruction of the fish by fieshets,woul I greatly increase 
thestock. l^ut theprottcss of :utificial propagation is so simple and easy, that 
when trout become tin object of care, wecatniot doubt that they will be multipli- 
ed and protected by this method. Many millicns of fine trout may thus be 
produced annually, and what is now regarded as a mere temptation to waste 
time, may be made, not only to minister to luxury an i health, but become 
an important branch of productive industry. In addition to this, fish ponds 
with borders of trees and shrubbery add to the beauty of a landscape, and 
must increase the value of a farm. 



The spawn of fish are so numerous, that the stock can be increased with 
immense rapidity; and by the exercise of proper skill, a large proportion 
of the spawn can be hatchel. la England, our. of 300,0.'0 salmon spawn, 
275,000 were hatched by artifiaial means. 

Oar large stream?, a:iJ e3^)3ji,illy tao.s3 wlu^a current is comparatively 
sluggish, and wliic'i, on th it ac33u:it, ara unsuitiMe for trout, mi^ht be 
made to yidld a largi stock o? variou? ot'.ur sp,i;io3 of iiurketabic fish, such 
as are adapted to their waters. T.ios3 larg; pon Is an 1 rossrvoirs, which 
have been created to supply w.iter-power to our immcrous manufactur ng es- 
tablishments, might f 11 be turnei to a profitable use in this way. It has 
been suggested that some of the species o," excellent fish tliat are fouid in 
our western lake.^, would thrive in theso waters. The variety might also be 
increased by the importation of cg^s from Karope. In many of them, no- 
thing needs to be done but to increase t'.ie qaaiitity offish they already contain, 
by artificial propagation, and by protecting the young fishes from destruotion 
till they become sufficiently large to protect themselves against their enemies. 

The fisheries of the Merrimack lliver having been made the subject of 
investigation during the present session, we need not refer to them particu- 
larly. An intelligent gentleman has estimated their value at 816,000 an- 
nually; the fish consisting principally of bass, shad, and alcwives. 

In the Connecticut River, shad and salmon were formerly very abundant. 
The salmon disappeared many years since. The shad still continue to ascend 
the river, as fiir as the artificial obstructions will permit them to go. When 
the dam of the Hadley Falls Company was ereoted at Holyoke, a few years 
since, the company purchased and extinguished all the fishing rights above 
that point. But the shad still continue to ascend to the foot of the dam, 
where they are taken in considerable numbers, and they are said to have 
numerous spawning beds between that point and the head of Enfield Falls. 
But the proprietors of the locks and canals at Enfield, have so far obstructed 
their ascent within two or three years past, that it is believed they will soon 
leave the river entirely, unless something is done for their preservation. 
This obstruction may be obviated without much expense, and it is believed 
that, by means of artificial propagation, the river below Hadley Falls, might 
be vastly better stocked with shad than it has ever yet been. An establish- 
ment for this purpose might be erected in this State, and the mouth of the 
Agawam River has been spokca of as a very suitable place. It is believed 
tiat these fish always return from the sea to the river where they were 
hatched. The ascent is at their spawning season, and they are then in the 
b©fft condition for nse. 



Those which are taken for market within the limits of this State, are gen- 
erally in such a condition that their spawn and milt may be used for artificial 
fecundation. It has been estimated by persons who are acquainted with the 
shad fishery of this river, that by means of artificial propagation the number 
of shad taken in the river might be increased by one or more millions annu- 
ally ; and as the fish are sold for about twenty cents each at the landing 
places, the value of such an increase would be very great. This improvement 
in the fishery cannot be made without joint legislation on the subject in this 
State and Connecticut. Probably a general Act of incorporation which 
should give a fair proportion of the profits to all persons engaged in the fish- 
eries, from the mouth' of the river upwards, would be the most effectual en- 
couragement that these fisheries could obtain from legislation. It would not 
be difiicult to frame an Act which would be just to all persons interested, 
and which would enable them to maintain an establihment for the artificial 
increase of the fish at the expense of all in proportion to the value of their 
respective rights of fishing. 

It is also believed by many intelligent persons, that the river might bo 
again stocked with salmon by such a company. Bat legislation would be of 
no avail unless it were sought for by the proprietors of the fisheries, and 
concurred in by both States. 

One branch of the inquiries to which our duty has directed us, relates to 
the necessity of further legislation. In considering this subject, we could not 
fail to remark the contrast that exists between the policy of our own gov- 
ernment and that of France, There the government extends its supervision 
of property and business to the most minute particulars, while here every 
tiling is left, as far as possible, to individual enterprise ; and our policy is 
to protect and promote industry with the least possible amount of legislation. 
And therefore, while the legislation of France, in respect to fisheries, exhibits 
great learning and skill, it is not at all adapted to our circumstances. 

So far as trout streams are concerned, no legislation appears to us to be 
necessary. Each proprietor of land is also proprietor of the fisheries upon 
it. The law protects him against trespassers and thieves, and so soon as it 
is understood that the owners of the fisheries consider them valuable and 
intend to exclude other persons from the use of them, their rights will un- 
doubtedly be respected. We cannot recommend any addition to our penal 
laws till it is called for and found to be necessary. 

In respect to extensive ponds, b'^rdering on a great number of proprie- 
tors, and also in respect to large streams flowing through the lands of a 
great number of proprietors, and in which the passage of fish from one 



portion of the stream to another cannot bo prevented, some legislation 
would doubtless be proper. It occurs to us that Acts incorporating the pro- 
prietors of fisheries, somewhat resembling the Acts incorporating the"'pro- 
prietors of general fields, may be suitable. These acts might confer exclu- 
sive right of fishing upon the riparian proprietors, giving to all of them an 
opportunity to become members of the corporation. If a part of the ripa- 
rian proprietors decline to av lil themselves of the privilege, they should not 
be permitted to prevent the use of the waters by the others. The laws which 
justify the flowing of lands for mills, and the taking of lands for aqueducts 
and other similar purposes, wi!l justify such an appropriation of our fisheries. 
There is no other method of securing to those who engage in. the labor of 
stocking our waters with fish, the benefit to which they are entitled. 

But we do not think it proper that any general law should be p.issed on 
this subject. We are without experience to guide us, and probably it would 
be necessary that legislation should be adapted to each particular case, in 
order to secure the rights of all concerne.!. Whatever charters are granted 
should also be subject to modification, so that if errors are committed, they 
may be corrected. And no legislation can be of any avail until private en- 
terprise shall ascertain its own wants. 

If thi State shall be disposed to encourage this branch of industry while 
it is new, by means of legislative bounties, we would suggest that the agri- 
cultural societies of the several counties may be very suitable agencies to be 
entrusted with the business. 

In view of all the information that we have been able to obtain, we have 
arrived at the following conclusions, viz, : that the artificial propagation of 
fish is not only practicable, but may be made very profitable, and that our fresh 
water may thus be made to produce a vast amount of excellent food ; that a 
small outlay of capital and a moderate degree of skill, aided by such inform- 
ation as can be derived from books that any man can procure, will enable 
the proprietors of our smaller streams an^ ponds to stock their own waters ' 
that in respect to the larger streams and ponds, a combination of individuals 
may be necessary, with special legislation adapted to each particular case, 
and guarding the rights of all persons interested in the waters, especially 
when they have been applied to mechanical purposes ; and that in all other 
respects, so far as the Commissioners can see, our laws afford to this branch 
of industry all the protection that can be necessary. If, indeed, any legis- 
lation were supposed to be necessary, it would be premature at present. 
Hasty and inconsiderate legislation is more likely to be mischievous than 
useful. All laws should be based upon practical knowledge ; and, in our 



opinion, there is too little practical knowledge on this subject in the Com- 
monwealth to authorize any changes in our existing laws. 

There is a kindred subject in respect to which legislative inquiry may be 
useful, and the Commissioners are indebted to Prof. Agassiz for suggesting 
it. The suggestion is based on the fact that some kinds offish are brought 
to market at seasons when they are unfit for use. Trout and salmon, for 
example, are sent to Boston market, from Maine and elsewhe e, as men- 
tioned in Captain Atwood's report, at their spawning season in autumn, 
when they ought to be left undisturbed, a id when they are unfit for food. 
The same practice is said to exist in respect to some other species of fish. 
Such sales in market ought to be prohi ited by penal laws; but as a pre- 
liminary step, a careful inquiry should be instituted into the fact-; by com- 
petent persons. The Commissioners have not considered such an inquiry as 
being within the rauge of their duties. 

R. A. CHAPMAN, 
HENRY \VH KAIL AND, 
N. E. ATWOOD, 

Commissioners. 



(Kommcmuntlilt n| ^tajisadtujidis. 



To the Hon. R. A. Chapman, Chairman of the Commissioners. 

At the time of receiving the appointment of Commissioner for the Artifi- 
cial Propagation of Fish, the season had sof.r advanced that nearly all the 
fresh water fish had deposited their spawn, with the exception of tiie trout 
and the allied species. Under these circumstances, it was deemed advisable 
that I should direct my inquiries to the trout,— respecting the habits, time 
of depositing spawn, localities where found most plentiful, &c. From the 
best information which I could obtain, Barnstable county was selected as 
containing the best trout streams. 

On the 13th of September, (with the advice, consent and approval of my 
colleagues in this commisbion,) I went to Sandwich, and located there, for 
the purpose of observing the habits and experimenting on the artificial pro- 
pagation of this fish. On the 15th of September I obtained four specimens 
— two males, two female? — and found that the eggs were not mature ; care- 
ful y observing the condition of those that were taken from that date, no 
mature eggs were noted till the third of November, when some were obtain- 
ed and fecundated by artificial means. This was effected in the following 
manner. I took a zinc vessel and put into it about one pint of clear water ; 
then taking the female fish whose eggs were mature, holding her over the 
vessel and gently passing the hand over the abdomen, the eggs freely pas ed 
from the fish into the water. I then took the male fish whose milt was ma- 
ture, holding him over the vesse. in the same manner, pressed the milt into 
the water containing the eggs; the water was stirred gently with the hand 
BO that every part of the egg came in contact with the milt ; after the laps* 



of two or three niliuites, the \\ater ^yas poured off, and some fresh water 
added ; the eggs, by this means, were successfully fecundated. 

By careful observation, 1 have aseertaine 1 that the trout commence to 
deposit their rpawn about the first of November, and as late as the middle 
of December I have found the females with spawn. I think that the spawn, 
ing season continues at least two months. I have observed in the Boston 
market, trout shipped from the State of ]\Iaine, in November, and their eggs 
were mature. At this season of the year this fish is exceedingly poor and 
lean, and consequen'ly, as an article of food, it is considered of little value' 
when in good condition, they are very excellent, and find a ready sale at 
high prices. The common salmon also finds a ready sale at very high 
prices in the "spring and early summer ; at that tima they are in excellent 
condition, and, like the trout, as the spawning season approaches, they be- ' 
come very poor, and remain so until long after they have deposited their 
spawn ; during this time they are of little value as an article of food. In 
November last, some ten thousand pounds of salmon were shipped to the 
Boston market from the British Provinces, and sold at a low price. These 
were the first which I have ever noticed to be shipped to Boston at the 
time of spawning ; they were full of mature eggs. 

The trout, at the time of spawning, will not bite at the hook as well as 
at other times, but are taken with difiiculty. Their habits, at this season' 
are to repair to the small brooks and streams where they can find a gravelly 
bottom, in order to deposit their spawn ; at that time I could obtain a few 
■with nets, and in no other manner ; they were exceedingly scarce. I wen* 
to Plynicuth, Barnstable, Marshpce, and the various streams and broo':s in 
Sandwich to procure them, and finallj^, after much exertion, I succeeded in 
collecting some 15,000 eggs. 

. These, after having been fecundated by artificial means, were placed into 
small tanks or tubs, which had been partially filled with sand and gravel, 
and so arranged that a small continuous stream of water flowed in on one 
side, and passed over at the other, thus a constant gradual change of the 
water was preserved. At the expiration of twelve days, some of the eggs 
were examined under the microscope, and it was perceived that the embryo 
had formed, and that the eggs were progressing hopefully. Soon after this 
time I noticed that some of the eggs began to rot ; these were daily re- 
moved, as they were easily detected by becoming opaque — the healthy eggs 
being perfectly transparent. The rotting of the eggs continued to an alarm- 
in^' extent, so that at the expiration of fifty-five days only a few remained. 



9 

The embryo had at that time become so far developed as to be distinctly 
seen by the unaided eye. I tliought that a few of thera might be saved by 
being put into still water. 1 accordingly brought to Boston the f.w that re- 
manied, and with them a quantity of water into which they had been de- 
posited, deeming it not advisable to change suddenly, but gradually, to re- 
place it with the Cochituate. I also tried the experiment of placing 
some of the eggs into all Cochituate water, and they soon died. 

The rotting, however, continued, and those that continued healthy ap- 
peared to be progresing hopefully until about the first of February; after 
that time 1 could not see : ny further developement of the embryo ; they 
had been deposited about ninety day-?, and the embryo seemed to be far ad- 
vanced toward maturity. The cause of their final decay and loss must have 
been owing to the water not possessing their natures required. At Sand- 
wich, where I made my experiments, there were two ponds, an upper and a 
lower pond, with springs running Into the former ; between the two ponds 
was a dam, that prevented the fish from passing from one to another. In 
the upper one I found trout apparently of all ages,, both young and old : but in 
the lower, below which I made my experiment, I found only a few trout, and 
they all had the appearance of extreme old age. In this pond I took five 
specimens, and they were females with mature eggs. I took -the m'.lt 
of males taken in other localities and put with the eggs, ani fecundation did 
not appear to have taken place. I came to the conclusion that the trout in 
this (the lower) did not multiply, but that they were the fish that were in 
the pond when the dam was built. 

After I found that the eggs which I had collected were fast decaying, I 
then (when it was too late to apply a remedy, or to adopt a different course,) 
concluded that the water was not suitable for their development, and al- 
though a large quantity of water was flowing out of the pond where I was 
located, and from which I took the water, yet the bottom being covered 
with mud, which was constantly accumulating from year to year by the fall- 
ing leaves, &c., might tend to render the water unsuitable for the devel- 
opment of the eggs of the fish. 

In conclusion, I must be permitted to express my sincere thanks to Prof. 
Agasslz and to Prof. Wyman, of Cambridge, for their kindness in Imparting 
information and advice in respect to the most suitable manner of conductin"- 
my experiment. N. E. ATWOOD. 

2 



PISCICULTUEE. 



Fisheries have often been called the agriculture of the waters, as if seas, 
lakes, and rivers were inexhaustible .store-houses of food, where, without fear 
of ever impoverishing them, man might continue to take and destroy forev- 
er, bounded only by his wants and his desires. This dehnition is false, be- 
cause founded on a false view of the care. Fishery is not the agriculture 
of the waters; it is only the harvesting. The waters are a source of pro- 
duction extremely powerful, but by no means infinite, and that the harvest 
may be always certain and abundant, it should be prepared by regular sow- 
i'.vr, if it is true, according to the expression of M. de Quatrefages, that 
fish may be multiplied by sowing in the same manner as grain. 

This would appear unnecessary pains, if we were to consider only tho 
very great fecundity of almost all the aquatic tribes. A perch of moderate 
size contains 28,320 eggs, and a herring 36,060. 

Thomas Harmer * and C. F. Lund t have obtained by untiring research- 
es, still higher numbers from other species, e. g., 80,388 and 272,160 for the 
pike ; 100,869 for the sole ; 71,820 and 113,840 for the roach; 137,800 
for the bream ; 383,250 for the tench ; 546,680 for the mackerel. A 
carp, weighing three kilogrammes (66 pounds) contained, according to Petit, 
342^140 eggs. A flounder has given the enormous figure of 1,357,400. 
There have been counted in a sturgeon as many as 7,635,200, and Leuven- 
hock has found 9,344,000 in a codfish. Finally, M. Valenciennes t has 
just calculated that there are 9,000,000 in a turbot of fifty centimmctres, 
(19 1-2 inches,) and as man}'- as 13,000,000 in a thick lipped mullet. 

If only the tenth part of the germs inclosed in the body of each fish ar- 
rived at maturity, there would be little to fear from the devastation of our 
coasts, or the depopulation of our fresh waters; but numerous causes of de- 
struction tend to reduce considerably the multiplication thus richly provi- 
ded for. These arise partly from natural causes, but in great part also, 
from the act of man. We are to point them all out, if possible, and weigh 

* Philosophical Trans. Royal Society of London, Vol. Ivii., p. 280. 1768. 

t Memoirs of the Swedish R. A. of Sciences, Vol. xxiii., German Ed., p. 192 
1761. 

:J: Valenciennes and Fremy. Researches on the Composition of Eggs in the Series 
of Animals. Academy of Sciences, March 20, 1854. 



11 

tliem successively before discussing tlie means of preventing their action, 
which will form the chief object of this article. 

In the first place, we must not forget, that in the general harraonj of na- 
ture, as Mr. Milne Edwards has justly remarked, the productiveness of ani- 
mals is regulated with a view not only to the dangers to which the youn"' 
are exposed before arriving at the age of reproduction themselves, but also 
to the uncertainty of fecundation of the eggs. It is well known that the 
immense majority of fishes are oviparous, and that the fecundation is efi"ec^ed 
by the operation of the male element upon the female element separate from the 
body of the animals, and in the midst of the waters where they live. This 
action is the condition necessary to the development of the embryo, and all 
the egg^, which have not experienced the contact with the animalcules of 
the milt, change and soon decay. Now it is never the case that all the 
spawn receives this action, and from this cause alone a portion, more or less 
considerable, is always lost. The portion which remains is in turn exposed 
to a host of pernicious influences. It may be left dry by a decline in the 
level of the water, or spoiled by the slimy substances which a rise of the 
waters always causes and carries with it. The spawn has also numerous 
enemies ; many fish devour it, many Crustacea, many insects attack it in 
like manner; it may be carried off by sea-weed and byssus, and almost all 
aquatic birds are ver}'' fond of it. 

All these chances of mortality and destruction prevent the fish from in- 
creasing as fast as the great number of eggs would at first lead us to sup- 
pose, but they are still in a measure subject to the laws of the animal crea- 
tion, and would seldom sufiice for the depopulation of the waters, unless sup- 
ported by causes of another nature. Among these should be mentioned, 
first of all, the inadequacy of the legislation on tho fisheries, and the viola- 
tion with impunity of all the protecting ordinances which it has provided. 
At the end of the last century Duhamel pointed out the depredations of the 
fishermen, who cast their lines with impunity at all ;reasons of the year, and, 
daily suffer numbers of fishes, too small to be sold, to perish upon the banks. 
He saw, with natural indignation, the inhabitants ot the coast fill baskets 
with the spawn to manure their land or feed their swine. This culpable 
improvidence has still further increased, and we can almost say that at the 
present time all injuries are authorized, and all abuses are practiced, with- 
out limit. In vain the best grounded complaints are raised against the 
poachers upon fisheries ; the devastations have continued on all sides. 

The necessity has been felt, however, for a long time, of taking repressive 



12 

measures against tho destruction of spawn, and the historians of 
fishery have collected numerous ordinances, which have been successively 
issued with this view at different times and in different countries. Without 
citing them all, it will be sufficient to recall those which have had the great- 
est influence upon the legislation of the present time. In the year 966, 
Ethelred II., king of the Anglo Saxons, interdicted the sale of youug fish- 
es. Malcolm II., in 1030, fixed the time of the year when the salmon 
fishery should be permitted. Several other kings of Scotland have confirm- 
ed these decrees. Under Robert I., the willows of the bow-nets were to be 
separated by at least two inches of interval, to leave a passage for the young 
fry. In 1400, Robert III. carried severity so far as to punish capitally 
every person convicted of having taken ;i salmon in the forbidden season. 
This cruel law was abolished by James I., but this prince kept up the inter- 
dict during the same season, and every infraction still remained the object 
of severe penalties. The kings of France were at great pains also to insure 
the free development of the young fishes. A great number of ordmances 
were issued by them, to determine the nature of the nets, of which the use 
should be perniitted, and tbe length of the fishes which might be sold in the 
market places. At length, in 1669, Colbert placed upon a new footing the 
legislation of the coasts and rivers. He prohibited river fishing during the 
night and during the spawning season, under penalty of a fine of twenty li- 
vres and a months's imprisonment for the first offence, of a fine double in 
amount and two months' imprisonment for the second, and of the pillory and 
the scourge for the third. The only exceptions were in the fisheries of Sal- 
mon, shad, and lampreys. Colbert also prohibited the placing basket work 
at the end of the drag nets during the spawning season, under penalty of twenty 
livres fine, and alter having determined the kinds of snares to be forbidden, 
he directed that the fishermen should return to the streams the trouts, carps, 
barbels, breams and millers, which they should take having less than six 
inches between the eye and the tail, and the tenches, perches and mullets 
having less than five inches, under a penalty of one hundred livres fine. 

The legislation which governs us at present is based upon the previous 
dispositions ; unfortunately, it has disregarded the information ofl'ered by 
natural history, and thus but imperfectly attains the object proposed. The 
regulations relative to marine fishing, permit, for example, the taking of a 
given fish on shores where it has never been found, and give, for the limits 
of the Crustacea, indications contrary to the most simple common sense. 
Tho code of river fishing, which principally interests us here, is no better 



13 

protected against criticism,' The ordinance of November 15, 1830, supple- 
mentary to that of April 16, 1829, leaves to the prefect of each department 
the care of determining, with the advice of the general council, and after 
having consulted the foresters, the times, seasons and hours when fishing 
shall be prohibited in the rivers and water-courses. Kow how many times 
must the prefects, little skilled in natural science, or ill advised by those 
whose duty it is to "enlighten them, have committed errors like those of Col- 
bert, when he interdicted trout fishing from the first of February to the 
middle of March, that is^to say, at a time when they had nearly all already 
finished spawning ! The same ordinance prohibits certain specified nets and 
snares, thus intimating that all others are authorized, and permitting 
changes of form and name in the first, without renderiug^them less formida- 
ble or destructive. Article 30 of the fishery code ])unishes, with a fine of 
20 to 50 francs, whoever shall catch, oflFer for sale, or sell fishes of 
less than the prescribed size, but it excepts from this provision sales of fish 
coming from ponds or reservoirs. It will at once be perceived how easy 
it is, through this exception, to catch and sell fish of all sizes. Article 24 
forbids the placing of any gate, structure or fishing elstablishment what- 
evei', calculated to prevent entirely the pasagc of fish, but it tacitly author- 
izes dikes and mill dams, which produce the same effect. 

We will carry carry criticism no further. It would be as easy for us to 
show that no efficacious measures insure the action of the fish police, and 
that the law is as badly executed as conceived. This state of things is de- 
plorable, and has, without doubt, powerfully contributed to bring on the 
decay which has fallen upon the aquatic industry of France.^ 

Some figures, taken from the archives of the ministry of finance, will show 
clearly the importance of the evil. The water-courses of France have a 
total length of 197,255 kilometres (122,500 miles.) Its lakes, reservoirs and 
fish ponds occupy a superficies of 220,000 hectares (900 square miles.) Now 
the rent of all the waters directed by the commissioners of forests, and those 
of 'Jikcs and bridges, yields to the State a revenue of 660,000 francs. The 

*The evil has been further increased by the encroachments of manufacturing indus- 
try, as well as by the processes which they have involved. The mills throw off into 
the water-courses their acids and salts, which have become useless, and the bleachers 
do the same with their chlorides. The beds of streams have often to be laid dry to 
execute dragging and cleansing. Finally, steamboats, by their violent movements of 
the water, raise and caet up the young fishes upon the river banks, and these are often 
retained and perish there. These last causes of destruction are still more fatal to the 
development of the fry thftn the culpable practices of the poachers. 



14 

former alone give fishing privileges in 7,570 kilometres (4,750 miles) of 
navi"-able and floating water-courses, producing the annual sum of 521,395 
francs ; that is, an average of 69 francs to the kilometre. The insignifi- 
cance of this sura is very striking, when compared with what it ought to be, 
or even with that still furnished by some rivers more favored than others. 
Thus the Doubs, in the Jura, is still let out at the rate of 159 francs the 
kilometre. The ]\|oselle, in the department of La Meurthe, at the rate of 
182 francs. For a similar length, the Loire brings m 252 francs in La 
Loire Inferieure, (department,) the Sarthe 297 francs in Le Mairie et Loire, 
and the Loiret 309. La Mayenne produces 339 francs, and the Seine 4to. 
As for the Mairie, it produces the exceptional sum of 1,378 francs. By the 
side of these figures, more, or less satisfactory, many others attest, on the 
contrary, the extreme scarcity offish. The Ain, in the Jura, produces only 
14 francs to the kilometre ; the Dordogne, in the department of La Correze, 
10 francs, the Isere 8 francs, the Drome 4, and the Durance 2. Finally, 
219 kilometres have been depopulated to that point, that they cannot be let 
at any price. 

This marked inequality in the revenues of several rivers, which ofi'er in 
general similar conditions to the fish, or whose difierent conditions can be 
differently improved, seems to indicate that the evil, even where greatest, is 
not irreparable. The proprietors, injured by the impoverishment of the 
fisheries, and the government itself, more interested than any body in the 
products of the rivers, have yet remained a long tima inactive under the 
laws which they are sustaining. The remedy has been decided upon only 
after the reiterated solicitations of naturalists, who, long since masters of a 
process of artificial multiplication, have felt that it might be usefully applied 
to the repopulating of rivers and ponds. The first experiments have given 
results sufficiently remarkable not to discourage farther attempts. The 
practical methods have been promptly developed, and scientific researches, 
skillfully conducted, have impressed a new character upon pisciculture — 
that is, the branch of rural economy which is occupied with the improvement 
of waters. A very general interest is now felt in this important question of 
the artificial multiplication of fish, which belongs at once to the natural 
sciences, to agriculture and to political economy. The result of the experi- 
ments which, since the end of the last century, have had for their object the , 
re-stocking of rivers, already forms a curious chapter of zoological history, 
and while awaiting its increase by some new pages, it appears to us desirable 
to reunite its scattered elements. 



lb 



The first attempts at pisciculture were luaclc by the Chiuese and the an- 
cient Romans, and it is probable that they were preceded by their elders in 
civilization. "V^'^e have no positive data as to the epoch in which the Chi- 
nese commenced these experiments ; but every thing tends to show that 
they reach back to the most remote antiquity. We find in the '^'Hisioire 
Generale des Vof/ages" (1748) in Grosier, in Davis, as M. Chevreul has 
already pointed out, and in most of the Avorks which treat of Chinese 
cus'oms, some curious details' on the transport of the spawn of fish. 
According to the missionaries who have visited China, a multitude of 
salmon, trout, and sturgeons mount into the rivers of Kiang-si and into the 
ditches which are dug in the middle of the field to preserve the water neces- 
sary to the production of lice. The Jesuit father, John Baptiste Duhalde, 
is the first French author who has shown the manner in which this traffic 
is clTectcd.^ We give his account, which most historians have copied with 
alterations ; "In the great river Yang-tse-kiang, not far from the city 
Kieon-king-fou, in the province Kiang-si, at certain times of the year, are 
assembled a prodigious number of boats for the purchase there of the eggs 
of fish. Towards the mcnth of May, the country people bar the river in 
various places with mats and hurdles, for a length of about nine or ten 
leagues, leaving only sufficient space for the passage of the boats; the eggs 
of the fish are stopped by these hurdles. They can distinguish them by the 
eye, where other persons see nothing in the water ; they draw out this wa- 
ter mixed with eggs, and fill several vases with it for sale, which causes 
at this season, numbSrs of merchants to come with their boats to buy it, 
and transport it into difibrent provinces, taking care to agitate it from time 
to time. They succeed one another in this operation. The water is sold in 
measures to all those who have fish preserves and domestic ponds. After 
some days there are seen in the impregnated water, as it were, little heaps 
of fishes' eggs, without its being yet possible to distinguish the species. It 
is only with time that this appears. The profit is often a hundred fold more 
than the outlay, as the people live in great part upon fish." To these very 
simpk", but successful means of replenishing their ponds, the Chinese are 
said to have joined others which travellers have only very imperfectly indi- 
cated ; they assert that when the young fish begins to eat, they give him 
marsh lentils mixed with yellow of eggs. 

The llomans had nearly similar customs, at a very early epoch. " The 

'History of the Chines^mpire, Vol. i., p. 35. 1735. 



16 

descendants of Romulus and Remus," says Columella,'^ " rustics as they 
were, had much at heart the procuring upon their farms a sort of abundance 
in every thing like that which reigns among the inhabitants of the city ; 
thus they were not satisfied with stocking with fish the ponds which they 
had constructed for this purpose, but carried their foresight to the point of 
filling lakes formed by nature with the spawn of fish which they threw into 
them. In this way the lakes Velinus and Sabatinus, as well as the Vuls- 
mensis and Ciuiinus, have, in the end, abundantly furnished, not only cat-fish 
and gold fish, but, moreover, all other sorts of fish which are able to live 
in fresh water." These practices were early abandoned, and it is a matter 
of surprise, when we consider the strange infatuation of which fish became 
the object in ancient Italy daring the following centuries, that no measures 
were then taken to insure their reproduction and free development. It is well 
known that the ancients had a remarkable predilection for this species of 
food. The principal luxury of the Roman banquets consisted of fish, and 
the poets speak of sumptuous tables spread with these exclusively. In the 
period between the taking of Carthage and the reign of Vespasian, this 
taste became a perfect passion, and for its gratification the senators and 
patricians, enriched by spoils of Asia and Africa, incurred the most foolish 
expense. Thus Licinius Murena, Quintus Hortensius, Lucius Philippus, 
constructed immense basins, which they filled with the most rare species, 
and Lucullus, like a new Xerxes, caused a mountain to be pierced to intro- 
duce sea water into his fish ponds. Varrot relates that Hirrius received 
twelve millions of sesterces (S675,000) fiom the numerous buildings which 
he possessed, and that he employed the entire sum in the care of his fishes. 
The rich patricians, says the same author, were not* satisfied with a single 
pond ; their fish preserves were divided into compartments where they kept 
shut up, apart from each other, fishes of diff"erent kinds ; they retained a 
great number of fishermen solely to take care of these animals. They tend- 
ed their fish as carefully as their own slaves, (luring sickness. It is even 
added that a naval expedition, commanded by an admiral, had for its object 
to introduce upon the coast of Tuscany a sort of scar peculiar to the waters 
of Greece. t 

This extravagant fashion, which spread through the various classes of 

*De Re Rustica, Book viii., Section 16. 

tDe Re Rustica, Book viii., Sectioa 17. 

tFor further details, see Noel de la Morimiere History of Fishes, Vol. i., 1815; 
Cuvier and Valenciennes Natural History of Fishes, Vol, i., 1828, and Bureau dela 
Malle, Political Economy of the Romans, Vol. ii. , 1840. 



17 

fiociety, and brought on the ruin of entire families, had also the effect of 
impoverishing the coasts of the Mediterranean. Ismeral complained that 
time was no bnger given to the fish of the Tyrrhenian sea to come to maturity. 
The scandalous luxury displayed in fish preserves, and the unwearied atten- 
tion then directed to marine animals, have furnished no other result useful 
to pisciculture. The only fact worthy of remarA at this epoch of sterile ex- 
travagance, is the introduction of gild fish into artificial ponds, where shell 
fish were also placed for their nourishment. 

We may pass rapidly over the immense interval which separates the Ro- 
man Empire from the eighteenth century, without remarking any important 
progress in the husbandry of the waters. The fisherman's art was, however, 
■extended and perfected during the middle ages, and fish preserves became 
extremely numerous in France and Italy. Kings and princes all had artifi- 
cial ponds in their domains, and we behold Charlemagne himself taking 
great pains to keep his own in repair, causing new ones to be dug, and giving 
order that the fish produced should be sold. The religious communities 
exacted enormous duties upon almost all fisheries, and had considerable pre- 
serves in which multitudes of fish grew fat. The maintenance of these 
preserves required many precautions, and the restorer of agriculture in the 
thirteenth century, (Peter of Crescenza,) pointed out the manner of getting the 
greatest result from the lakes of fresh, as well as salt water. There appears 
in his work, however, no method worthy of being noticed here, and the trea- 
tise does not appear to us to have rendered any more service to pisciculture 
than that of Florentinus, in the third century, at least as far as we can 
judge of the latter by the extracts which Cassianus Bassus has preserved for 
us. It appears, nevertheless, that towards the end of the middle ages, new 
methods were sought for, which might serve to increase the production of 
fish ; a monk oF the abbey of Reome, near Montbara, named Dom Pinchon, 
conceived the idea of artificially fecundating the eggs of trout, by pressing 
out in turn the products of a male and female of this species into water, 
which he afterwards agitated with his finger. After this operation, he 
placed the eggs in a wooden box hiving a layer of fine sand on the bottom, 
and a willow grating above and at the two ends. The apparatus remained 
plunged up to the moment of hatching, in water flowing with a gentle stream. 
This process is described in a manuscript dated 1420, and belonging to the 
Baron of Montgandry, grand nephew of our celebrated Bufibn. It has never 
been published, and had remained secret till a recent time.* Dom Pinchon 

*M. De Montgandry explained the hatching box of Dom Pinchon at one of the last 
sessions of the Zoological Society of Acclimation, and was kind enough to inform us 
also of the manner in which the monk of Eeome effected the fecundation of the eggs. 

3 



18 

is then, in all probability, the first inventor of artificial lecundution, but his 
experiments must be looked upon as not having occurred, since they were 
not made public. They have of course had no influence on the progress of 
pisciculture, and are only interesting in a historical point of view. 

The fishery of Commacliio, on the Adriatic, of which the origin is probably 
very ancient, presents some natural features, which may, perhaps, be imitated 
with advantage on other parts of the Mediterranean shore. j\lready describ- 
ed at length by Bonaveri, then by Spallanzani, this lagoon still merits that 
we should say some words with regard to it. It is, perhaps, one hundred 
and thirty miles in circumference, according to Spallanzani, and is divided 
into forty basins surrounded with dikes, and all in communication with the 
sea. Eels abound there to such an extent, that the inhabitants sell them 
through all Italy. During the months of February, March and April, they 
leave the gates open and all the passages free ; the young eels enter of their 
own accord, and the more abundantly in proportion as the weather is 
stormy. This they call the " mounting^ Once in the basins, the fishes 
find nourishment so abundant and so well suited to their wants, that they do 
not attempt to leave until full grown, that is, after about five or six 
years. The eels emigrate and are taken in the greatest number during 
the months of October, November and December. For this purpose, 
the fishermen open at the bottom of the basins little passages bordered 
with reeds, which the eels follow from choice, and are conducted 
into a sort of narrow chamber, where they accumulate without being able 
to get out. On the average, the crop amounts annually to a million of kilo- 
grammes, (2,204,737 pounds,) and M. Corte informs us that it produces, 
according to the estimate of M. Cuppari, a net revenue of 80,000 Eoman 
crowns, that is, about $88,000. 

The fishers of Commachio profit, as we see, by the advantages which na- 
ture offers, and they have but few precautions to take to insure the devel- 
opment of the fish in this great preserve. The less ftivorable circumstances 
in which the fisheries of the Swedish lakes were carried on, induced investi- 
gation, towards the middle of the last century, of the means of preventing 
the considerable loss which the spawn had there to undergo. Already great 
care was taken in that country not to trouble the fish at the times of their 
reproduction, so that it was even forbidden to ring the bells during the 
spawning season of the bream. A counsellor of Linkoeping. Charles Frede- 
rick Lund,^ remarked that the three species most esteemed among those 
which inhabit the Lakes of that country, the bream the perch and the mul- 

*0f the Planting of Fishes in Inland Lakes. Memoirs of the Swedish Academy of 
Sciences, Vol. 2o, 1761. German Translation of Kartner, p. 184. 



19 

lot, attach their eggs near the banks, either to the rocks; or by preference, 
to the tsvigs of pine and to the willow cages placed in the water to catch 
them. The eggs arc thus destroyed by the fishermen, or devoured by in- 
sects, birds, and especially by the fishes of prey, so that hardly one out of 
ten finally escapes. He well understood that the prohibition of fishing 
during the spawning season would very imperfectly prevent this enormous 
destruction. He devised another means of protecting the multiplication of 
the fish, which accords completely, as he himself remarks, with the habits of 
these animals, the mode and the laws of their reproduction, as well as with 
the rules of logic and of our own duty. He caused large wooden boxes to 
be made without covers, but pierced with little holes, and furnished with 
rollers to allow of their descending easily into the water. He placed twigs 
of pine in them, and introduced a certain quantity of males and females, 
taken at the time of spawning, taking care to separate them by their 
kinds and to give them space enough. After having left them there two or 
three days, — that is, during the time necessary for laying the eggs, he 
drew out all the fishes with the help of a small net, and arranged the boughs 
so as not to press too much against one another. The eggs arrived at matu- 
rity after a fortnight, or a little more, according to the degree of heat, and 
a multitude of young fishes came forth. This simple process included all 
the conditions necessary to success, and doubtless great advantages may be 
found in it for the propagation of fishes whose eggs are adherent. Lund 
succeeded in transporting from one lake to another, boughs covered with 
spawn, which he placed in a vase of water, taking care merely not to 
expose them to contact with the air. In making a first application of his 
process, he had put separately into three large boxes, with a small number 
of males, fifty female breams, which gave him 3,100,000 of the fry; one 
hundred perch of the large species pi-oduced 3,215,000 of the fry; and one 
hundred mullets gave 4,000,000 of little ones. He obtained then in this 
manner more than ten millions of young fishes, which were dispersed in the 
Lake of Kaexen. If this process had been employed on a large scale in all 
the lakes of Sweden, there would have resulted, says he, a real blessing 
for the country. 

The favorable circumstances of the arrangement adopted by Lund enabled 
him to observe some particulars of the development of the embryo. A Ger- 
man naturalist, Bloch,* advanced somewhat farther in this direction by em- 
ploying a similar means. He took from the Spree some aquatic plants 

*^Marc Eliczcr Blouh. General and particular Ichthyology, Tartii , p. 94. 179&. 



20 

(jovered with eggs of perch, bream, rotengle, &c., and kept them in a wooden 
box of fresh water, renewed daily. At the end of a week he obtained many 
thousands of little fish; observing, however, that only a small part of the 
egirs were fecundated, and that those which were so, remained transparent 
and yellow, while those which failed, became daily more disturbed and 
opaque. Bloch concluded that by transporting spawn upon plants, as he 
had done, lakes and ponds might be easily and cheaply stocked with fish ; 
but he made no experiment, and as we see, only imperfectly imitated Lund. 

While the ingenious predecessor of Bloch was seeking the means of in- 
creasing the inhabitants of the Swedish lakes, a lieutenant of militia of Lip- 
pe De mold, in Westphalia, J. L. Jrcobi. conceived the idea of artificially 
fecundat'ng the eggs of fish, and of applying this process to the repopulating 
of ponds and rivers. The curious results of his experiments u ere indeed 
embodied in a letter which the Magazine of Hanover only published in 
1763 j* but as early as 1T58 Jacobi had addressed manuscript notes upon 
the subject to the illustrious Bufibn, which Lacepede has mentioned in the 
first volume of his Natural History of Fishes, and in the course of the same 
year he had intrusted another account of his labors to the Count de Gol \-- 
stein, grand chancellor of Berg and Juliers, Goldstein caused a Latin 
translation of it to be made, which he sent M. de Fourcroy, director of for- 
tification at Corsica, and an ancestor of the celebrated chemist. This ver- 
sion was published for the first time in French in 1773, in Vol. iii. of the 
General History of the Fisheries by Duhamel-Dumonceau. Duhamel does 
not mention Jacobi, but the facts in both memoirs being perfectly identical* 
and set forth in similar terms, it is impossible not to perceive that both 
writings emanate from the same author. The date of the first communica- 
tion entirely secures the claims of Jacobi, which are besides confirmed by 
the quotations of Lacepede, and by a communication made in 1764: by 
Gleditsch, to the academy of sciences at Berlin. We give the details, be- 
cause the name of Goldstein alone having been printed in the History of the 
Fisheries, many naturalists have wrongly attributed to him the merit of 
the discovery of artificial fecundations. 

The experiments of Jacobi were upon the two most esteemed species of 
fish, the trout and the salmon. He tells us himself that, before arriving at 
good results, he had to employ sixteen years in preparatory researches 
and incomplete experiments. He remarked, in the first place, that from the 

* It is to be found also, in cxlcnso, in Wm. Yarrell, History of Britisli Fislies, Vol. 
ii., p. 87, 18il, and at tlie end of Practical Instructions upon Pisiculture, by M,- 
Goste, 1853. 



21 

oF November to the beginning of February the trout come together in the" 
brooks and fix themselves upon the gravel, -svliere thej rub their bellies in 
a way which leaves large tracks. Tiie females then deposit their 
eggs, upon which the males drop their milt. He caused some trout, then, 
to be taken at this season, when ready to spawn ; taking by turns a female 
and a male, he pressed their abdomens lightly over a vase half filled with 
water, and let fall into it the mature products of both sexes, and then 
stirred up the whole with his hand in order to render the mixture more 
complete and thus to ensure the fecundation of ;ill the eggs. These e^t^s 
being once fecundated, it was necessary to combine the circumstances proper 
for their development, and for this purpose Jacobi thought of placinn' them 
in a grated box, across a little brook of running water. He constructed a 
large chest, at one extremity of which, and on the upper surflic.^, he left a 
square opening, barred by a metallic grating of which the threads were sep- 
arated by a space of only about four lines; this opening served to let in the 
water. Another, grated in like manner, and placed in the vertical face of 
the other extremity, allowed it to flow out. The bottom was overlaid with 
an inch of sand or gravel. Jacobi placed this apparatus in a tre:ich pre- 
pared for it by the side of a brook, or, better still, a pond fed by good 
springs, from which he could cause, by a canal, an uninterrupted stream of 
water to flow through the box. 

These dispositions, very simple and judiciously combined, completely re- 
solved the problem which he had proposed to himself, viz : To protect the 
fecundated eggs against t'.ieir natural enemies, and yet to leave them in cir- 
cumstances similar to those in which they would naturally have 'been placed. 
The experiment succeeded. After about three weeks, Jacobi saw appear- 
ing through the thick envelope of the egg two black pomts correspond- 
ing to the eyes of the animal, and eight days later he began to disting'iish 
the body itself which moved and turned in the interior. Finally, after five 
weeks, the young fishes bi-oke from their shells, and soon separate:! them- 
selves completely from it, retaining on y, under their bellies, a hanging yel- 
low pouch, which is the umbilical vesiculc. During nearly a month the 
young were nourished by the substance of this pouch, which disappears as 
they increase in size ; but then th y had need of other nourishment, and to 
obtain it, they left the box by passing through the grating, and fell into- 
a re-ervoir filled with sand and fitted to receive them. Jacobi adds, that in 
a basin of suflicient size, they grew wonderfully in the space of six months,- 
and that then they had arrived at a suitable growth for stocking the ponds ;• 
but he does not> say in what way he nourished them during all this time. 



99 

Tho inventor of artificial fecundation appears to have often repeated the 
exnerimeiits which he descrii)es, and took great pains to insure the success 
of them. He perceived that the eggs are easi'j spoiled when they get 
into heaps, and recommends, to avoid this danger, the separating them fre- 
quently by means of a switch. Car^e should be taken also, that thsy do 
not stick together, when the milt is poured over them. Finally, the dirt 
which the water deposits should, frcm time to time, be carefully removed 
from them, and this may be readily done with the feather of a quill. 

The question now is, whether Jacobi, by neglecting no precautions, and 
guarding himself against the various chances of failure, did arrive at a final 
result which is completely satisfactory in a practieal point of view ? Did 
he succeed, by means of his process, in advantageously re-stocking water- 
courses which had become unproductive, or increasing production, to any 
extent, in those where fish were already abundant ? We have not the re- 
quisite documents for answering this question positively ; but we can 
scarcely doubt that "he obtained at least partial results, since England re- 
compensed his services with a pension, and in a little state of Germany, his 
operations h.ive been continued with success by M. Schmittger.^ 

Physiology soon turned to account the discovery of Jacobi, and artificial 
fecundations have since boen frequently reproduced in laboratories. There 
is no need of recalling the results which Spallanzani, Prevost of Geneva, 
and Dumas, have drawn from them. They have been also a great help to 
cmbryological studies, and by employing this means two contemporaneous 
zoologists, Rusconi and C. Vogt, have been able to follow all the phases of 
development of the tench and the palie; but this discovery especially 
marked a great progress in pisciculture, and while science availed itself 
skilfully of this new mode of investigation, the practical results obtained by 
Jacobi were carried out in Germany and Scotland. 

In the Treatise on the 'Economy of Ponds (by Ernst Friedrick Hurtig, p. 
411, 1831,) there is given a description of the process of Jacobi, with the 
remark that this method has been successfully employed by the forester 
Franke, at Steinburg, in the principality of Lippe Schaumburg, as well as 
Joy M. de Kaas, at Biickeburg. The same facts are confirmed by M. 
Knoche,t who asserts that he has himself also completely succeeded upon 

* This fact is proved by a letter of Dr. Schutt, of Frankfort, recently written to 
!Mr. Milne Edwards. The experiments of M. Schmittger have been made in the prin- 
cipality of Lippe Dctmold. 

t Journal of the Agricultural Union of the Grand Duchv of Hesse. No. 37, p. 407. 
1840. 



the estate callod Oolbergeri. Tiie last writer placed the young fish at first 
ill a little reservoir, and the following year transported thera into a larger 
basin. " I have obtained by this process," says he, " in the eight years 
that I have been employed, 800 young fishes out of 1,000 to 1,200 eggs. 
After a year I found in the smaller popd only about half the fish, the others 
having either died or escaped. Apart from this loss they succeeded very 
well, and I have obtained in three years, out of the fish, in this manner, a 
crop of three to four hundred trouts a year, of three to four years of a^e, 
and of which the largest weighed three-quarters of a pound." M. Vo<T^t, in 
a letter recently published, which reproduces this passage of M. Knoche, 
informs us at the same time that a decree of the government of Neufchatel, 
issued in 1842, gave complete instructions to the fishermen as to the method 
of artificially fecundating the eggs of fish. 

itome experiments have also been made in England and Scotland. After 
having studied during several years the manner in which the salmon spawn 
naturally, Mr. John Shaw* attempted to combine the conditions, which ap- 
peared to him most essentia!, in some preserves which he caused to be made 
near the river Nith. These reservoirs were only two feet in depth, and 
spread with a thick bed of gravel. They were fed directly by the water of 
a spring which abounded with the larvae of insects. A close grating was 
placed before the conduits, by which the surplus of this water had to flow 
out to gain the river. These dispositions once made, Mr. Shaw fecundated 
the eggs just below the point where the water fell into his basins, and left 
them to develop at the same sjiot. This plan succeeded, and he was able 
to bring up a certain number of young salmon during two years, and even 
more. He took advantage of them to make observations upon their growth 
and change of color. At the age of six months the young salmon had a 
length of two inches ; of a year, three inches and three quarters ; of sixteen 
months, six inches ; and of two years, six inches and a half. At this 
last period, when they had put on the livery of emigration, and when they 
are called in Great Britain by the name of parr, the milt of the males had 
arrived at a sufiicicnt state of maturity to be able to fecundate the eggs of 
adult females. We owe also to M. Shaw, as well as to Mr. Andrew Youngt 
and Dr. Knox, our increased kcowledge of various particulars relative to 
the monogamy of salmons, and to the manoeuvres which the female performs 
on the spawning place, but these researches do not appear to have had any' 
practical result worthy of attention. 

* Transactions of the Koy^al Society of Edinburg, Vol. xiv., p. 547. 1840. 
+ Natural History of the Salmon. Wick. 1848. 



24 

An engineer of Hammersmith, named Gotlieb Bocclus, published in 1848 a 
short treatise on the management of fish in rivers and streams. He extols 
in it the method of artificial fecundation, but without producing any positive 
fact to prove that he himself experimented with success. Since that time 
he has assured Mr. Milne Edwards that he had operate! in 1841 upon the 
water-courses belonging to Mr. Druramond, near Uxbridge, the;i upon 
the estate of the Duke of Devonshire at Chatsworth, upon that of Mr. 
Ournie at Carsalion, and that of Mr. Hibberts at Chalfort. Mr. Boccius 
must have raised already about two millions of little trout. 

The discovery of Jacobi had passed succrssfully, as we have seen, the 
trial and application in England, as in Germany. Up to 1848, nevertheless, 
France had remained very much behind in experiments of this sort. Al- 
though she, perhaps more than any other country, had need of effectual 
means for remed_ying the impoverishment of the waters, the French econo- 
mists had scarcely given any attention to this question. A single one, the 
Baron of Biviere, presented, in 1840, to the Central Society of Agriculture* 
some very learned and sensible reflections upon ichthyology regarded in its 
relations to the wants of man, and the profits of agriculture. '^^ He insisted 
especially on the advantages which would result from taking in the Spring 
the hoiarons or little eels which abound at the mouths of rivers, and dis- 
persing them in the lakes, ponds, pools, and even muddy ditches, where 
they live very well. He satisfied himself that they might be transported 
alive in casks full of water, without appearing to sufi'er much from it ; but 
wherever it should be possible to use rivers or canals, he thought it better 
to make use of boats pierced with holes in communication with the water, 
such as are frequently used for keeping fish. In this memoir of M. de 
Biviere, the word Pisciculture is used for the first time ; he employs it wath 
hesitation to indicate this new briuich of rural economy^ which, says he, is 
still to be created, 

n. 

The year 1848 saw a new era commence in France for the economy of 
the waters. We believe it is just to say, that if the application of artificial 
fecundation to the repopulating of rivers is owing to a German naturalist, 
it is in our country that pisciculture has grown, has been perfected, and has 
finally come to constitute an actual branch of industry. All the progress 
which has been made within six years in this department of the science, is 
the work of French inquirers. 

♦Memoirs of tte Central Society of Agriculture, Vol. xlviii., p. 171. 1840. 



25 

The first, M. de Quatrefages/'^ was led by purely scientific researches to 
occupy himself with the multiplication of fish. This zoologist, convinced 
that artificial fecundation would do away with the various causes which 
prevent the development of the eggs, advised the employment of the hatch- 
ing box of Goldstein (or rather of Jacobi) for fish of running water. For 
those of ponds or lakes he recommended depositing the fecundated eggs on 
a layer of aquatic plants in a spot where the water should be tranquil and 
shallow, and protecting them by lattice work against the attacks of their 
enemies. He showed how the employment of the process discovered by 
Jacobi would facilitate the domesticating of foreign fish in our waters. Fi- 
nally, he pointed out the possibility of rendering annual the triennial and 
irregular product of the ponds by .dividing them into three or four unequal 
compartments. In the smallest the eggs might be hatched and the fry raised. 
Each year the fish might be driven from one compartment to another, and 
the last basin might be fished every year. 

The memoir of M. de Quatrefages made a good deal of noise, because it 
met one of the wants of rural economy, and gave a glimpse of a quite new 
prosperity for the industry of ponds and water-courses. Drawing from ob- 
livion the results obtained in Germany during the last century, it recalled 
the attention of naturalists and husbandmen to a question too long neglected, 
and of which it would be now superfluous to dwell upon the importance. The 
author was, doubtless, far from thinking that the conclusions to which he 
had brought his studies would be almost immediately justified and confirmed 
by the experiments undertaken some j'ears before, but which had not yet 
been made public. However, in the first days of March, 18J:9, the Acade- 
my of Sciences learned by a letter of Dr. Haxo.t Secretary of the Society 
of Emulation of the Vosges, that this society had, in the year 1844, given 
a premium to two fishermen of La Bresse, M. M, Remy and Gchin, for 
having fecundated and artificially hatched some eggs of trout. M. Haxo 
added that Remy and Gehin then possessed a piece of water containing five 
or six thousand trout, of one to three years old, all raised by this process. 
It is impossible not to admire the sagacity and perseverance of these fisher- 
men, who, quite unlettered and ignorant of the progress of the natural 
sciences, have found the means, of themselves, of remedying the decay of 
their industry, and of giving it a new impetus. Not only have they repeated, 

*Comptes renilues of the Academy of Sciences, Vol. xxvii.', p. 413. 1818. See also 
the Revue des Deux Mondes. Jan. 1, 1849. 

tComptcs Rendus of the Academy of Sciences, Vol. xiviii., p. 351. 1840. 

4 



26 

with great pains, the observations and experiments which occupied Jucobi's 
whole life, but they have gone much farther in the practical application, and 
have almost entirely resolved the problem. 

Althou;''h they have both greatly contributed to the success of the uuder- 
takin"', we now know that the first efforts were solely owing to Joseph iiemy, 
and that he associated Antoine Gehin with himself only after having already 
half succeeded. llemy first studied the habits of the female trouts ready 
to spawn. lie saw them remove the gravel with their tails, and rub their 
bellies to assist the laying of the eggs. Having caught many of them in this 
state he perceived that by pressing them a little with his hand, he could 
easily force out the mature eggs, and that the same thing^occurred with 
the milt of the males. He nest suspended a female above a vase full of 
water, and by n:eans of a light pressure applied from above downwards, he 
caused the eggs to fall out, upon which he afterwards poured, in like man- 
ner, the fecundating liquid of the male until the water was white. Next 
depositing the eggs in a tin box pierced with numerous holes, and spread 
with a layer of coarse sand, he placed the box in a fountain of pure water 
or "n the bed of a brook ; after a certain time he saw the youn^- hatched, 
and freeing their tails first. 

These facts, whic'i E,emy relates himself in a letter addressed in 1843, to 
the prefect of the Vosges, are, as we see, almost identical with those which 
Jacobi has embodied in his memoir, as these last were with the experiments 
of Dom Pinchon ; but the two fishermen of La JJresse did not stop there.* 
It was not enough to have guardei the eggs against the chances of destruc- 
tion, which menace them when abandoned to themselves. It was necessary 
also to insure the development ot the young, and to find for them a nourish- 
ment suited to the wants of their age. This, Remy and Gehin succeeded in 
doing. After two or three weeks of a diet adapted to these wants, they 
opened the boxes which contained the fry, and allowed them to run freely 
into a water chamber or a portion of the stream prepared to receive them. 
There they had taken care before-hand to raise a great number of frogs, of 
which the spawn is eagerly devoured by the young trout. Somewhat later, 
they had recourse to the method already employed for the support, in pre- 
serves, of adult carnivorous fislies.t 

*Haxo d'Espinal on the Artificial Fecundating and Hatching of the Eggs of Fish, 
2d edition, p. 22, 1853, and Guide of the Pisciculturist, 1854. 

t " To nourish their young trout," says M. de Quatrefages, " they hatched with 
them, other smaller species of fish, smaller and herbivorous. These are raised and 



27 

Remy ;uk1 (jehiii first HtockoLl two poiiJs near La Urease, several brooks 
of their canton, the water-courses of the commune of Waldcnsteiu, and have 
thrown about fifty thousand young trout into the Moselottc, one of the afflu- 
ents of the Moselle. These results were too important, and promised too 
great advantages in the economy of our waters, not to draw the attention of 
the public, and even of the government. In 1850, M. jNIilne Edwards was 
officially charged by the minister of agriculture, to make sure of the accu- 
racy of the facts published, and to ascertain their value. After having 
procured some information in England, as to similar experiments, he went 
into the Yosges, and visited the little establishment of the fishers of La 
IJresse. In a very remarkable report,^ he gave an account of the interest- 
ing labors of Reiny and Gehin, and, while pointing out that the discov- 
ery of artificial fecundation dated back into the last century, he proclaimed 
that the fishermen of La Bre*se were the first to make application of it 
among us, and that they have the merit of having thus created a new branch 
of industry in France. The learned Dean of the Faculty of Sciences of 
Paris resolved upon a grand experiment of stocking the waters of France 
with fish, and regarded the success of it as probable, if the processes were 
judiciously arranged. It appeared to him that the best recompense which 
the government could make to the fishermen of Bresse, would be to give 
them tlie direction of the enterprise. The Philomatic Society did not hes- 
itate to put forth a similar wish by the organ of M. de Quatrelages, 

The first notice of M. de Quatrefages, the promulgation of the success ob- 
tained at La Bresse, and the favorable report of M. Milne Edwards, gave 
a powerful impulse to pisciculture, and induced varied applications of it on 
all sides. Under the influence of these first labors, commenced, in many 
parts of France, the grand trial which is now going on. Its value will not 
be fully known till it is completed ; but it is already sufficiently advanced 
to permit us to hope that in the majority of cases, the method of artificial 
focundation will produce important results. A certain number, both of emi- 

uouribhcd upon aquatic vegetaLles. In tlieu- tuvu they serve for food to the trout, 
who arc nourished by iiesh. These fishermen have thus Kuoceedcd in applying to their 
industry, one of the most general laws, upon which are based the natural harmonies 
of the animal creation. ' ' lu vievr of the necessity of their carnivorous diet, it is import- 
ant to put together only trout of the same age, otherwise the smaller become the food 
of the largo; and even with this precaution, it is not always possible to avoid the fatal 
effects of their voracity. 

*Annals of the Natural Sciences. Third Series, Vol. xiv., p. 53. 18G0. 

t Journal of Practical Agriculture, of June 5, 1802, 



28 

Dent men of learning, and of men of practical skill, have taken part in this 
movement, which, far from slackening, increases on the contrary, and is 
extending daily more and more. Among those who have contributed most 
by their writings or their practical studies to the continually increasing pro- 
gress of pisciculture, besides Remy and Gehin, besides M, Milne Edwards 
and M. de Quatrefages, we must mention M, Valenciennes, whose knowl- 
edge of ichthyology is so extensive and profound; M. Millet, inspector of 
waters and forests; M. Coste, professor in the College of France; Messrs. 
]3erthol & Detzem, engineers of bridges and causeways; Mr. Paul Gervias,^ 
at Montpellier, Mr. J. Fonmet,t at Lyons, Mr. F. Defilippi,! at Turin. 

M. Valenciennesll has at least in part, realized the hope which has often 
been indulged, of transporting and domesticating in the waters of France 
the most esteemed fish of foreign countries. He has succeeded in bringing 
alive from the Spree to the reservoirs of Marly, five difierent kinds, each 
represented by a certain number of individuals. There are the sander, (perca 
hicioperca, of Linne,) the loels or silure {silunis glanis, ofLimie,) the ala?idt, 
[cypriyius jeses, of Block,) the German lotie, {gradus lotta, of Block,) and 
i]iQ pitzker {cohites fossilis, of Linne.) This trial has only been made on a 
small scale, but it is none the less important on that account, since it proves 
that, in ordinary circumstances, difference of waters would not be an abso- 
lute obstacle to the acclimating of fo;eign fish. 

The same gentleman was afterwards charged by the Minister of IMarine 
with the duty of inspecting the fisheries of our coasts. The report, in which 
were embodied the observations made in the course of this mission, has re- 
mained unpublished, and it is to be regretted that the learned ichthyologist 
was not able to continue and extend these researches, to which his previous 
studies so naturally called him. 

It is worthy of notice what wise circumspection Messrs. de 
Quatrefages and Milne Edwards have employed in presenting the 
advantages which rural economy might derive from the method ot 
artificial fecundation. They have incited the proprietors to at- 
tempts which appeared likely to be advantageous, but without always 
promising them certain results. M. Coste has proceeded with less reserve. 

*Bullctin of of the Society of Agriculture del'Herault, July, 1852. 

tMemoirs of the Society of Agriculture of Lyons, May, 1853. 

timportanza economica dei pesci e del Coro allevamento artificiale. 

llReporton the Species offish in Prussia, which might be imported and acclimated 
in the fresh waters of France. 



29 

With unlimited confielencc in the future of pisciculture, he has allowed no 
occasion to pass without exalting the benefits which it will confer. In his 
first report, at the close of the year 1850, he declared already "that there 
is no branch of industry or husbandry, which, with less chance of loss, of- 
fers an easier certainty of profit."* Later he speaks with enthusiasm of the 
means, tried during a century, of providing for the rcpopulating of the wa- 
ters. Most certainly it is with excellent intentions, and, doubtless, in the 
hope of sustaining the efforts of experimenters, that M. Coste thus under- 
takes to guarantee future results; but is it not rather to be feared that, in 
magnifying too greatly some partial successes, he may compromise the gen- 
eral success of the undertaking. Meanwhile, though these absolute affirma- 
tions seem to justify, to some extent, some critisms of which the learned Pro- 
fessor has been the object, they cannot diminish his share in the improve- 
ments recently made in the method of Jacobi. 

M. Coste first put in practice the means proposed by the Baron de Riv- 
iere for transporting the " mounting''^ or the young eels, and raising them 
in confined spaces.^ After having brought this mounting from the mouth 
of the Orne to the College of France, in flat paniers, overlaid with aquatic 
plants, he gave them for nourishment a hash composed of the flesh of ani 
mals, which do not serve for food, and of that of molluscs and earth insects. 
The little eels which, on arriving, had an average length of six and seven cen- 
timetres, (two and one-half to three inches,) and a circumference of one 
centimetre, had arrived, after twenty-eight months of this diet, at thirty- 
three centimetres of length, and seven of circumference. M. Coste remarks 
with reason, that the corpses of the vcrtebrated animals, which are not fit 
for the food of man, might be made useful in this manner. lie adds that 
the noxious insects would serve quite as well to fatten the fish. " Thus a 
great service would be rendered to agriculture, since it would, in the end, 
be delivered of one of its scourges," It is to be regretted that the learned 
Professor has not entered into any details upon the best method of captur- 
ing these insects, which the cultivators have ro great an interest in get- 
ting rid of, even if they could not make a profitable use of them. 

The author of the Practical Instructions upon Pisciculture has been at 
length induced to take charge of the organization of a vast establishment of 
artificial fecundation. In 1850 the two engineers of the canal from 
the Rhone to the Rhine, Messrs, Dctzcrn and Berthol, after having visited 
La Bresse on the invitation of the Prefect of the Doubs, had applied at 
Huningue the method of Remy and Gehin, Upon the basis of their first 

*Practical Instructions upon Pisciculture, p. 3-1. 



30 

experiments thej had undertaken hypothetical calculations, from which it 
appeared that the present population of the waters of France does not ex- 
ceed twenty-five millions of fish, producing annually less than sis millions 
of francs (§1,200,000) — which figure is really much too large — while, if 
the process of artificial fecundation every were where introduced, the number 
of fi^■a would be raised, after four years, to three thousand one hundred and 
seventy-seven millions, and would produce a revenue of nine hundred mil- 
lions of francs ($180,000,000.^^) At Lochlebrunn, some kilometres from 
Huningue, Messrs. Detzern and Eerthol had established the foundations of a 
large preserve, where in 1852 they operated numerous fecundations, by 
means of a hatching box, which in no respect diifers from that of Jacobi. 
They assert they have there obtained a cross of the trout and salmon.t 

The minister of agriculture directed M. Coste to visit the new establish- 
ment. In a report, favorable t.) the labors of Messrs. Berthol and Detzern, 1^ 
the professor of the College of France asked for and he succeeded in obtain- 
ing a considerable development of the fish preserve or piscifactcrry, as he 
proposed to call it. He brought into use on a large scale a hatching appa- 
ratus which we shall have to describe, adopted all the measures which 
he thought most fit, and in his memoir upon the means of restocking the 
waters of France, he undertook, before the Academy of Sciences, to make a 
delivery in June, 1853, of six hundred thousand trout and salmon, large 
enouo-li to be thrown into our rivers. We have not visited the establish- 

o 

meut of Huningue, and know not whether it is organized in a way to fulfil 
a part of the promises which its founders have often put forward ; but from the 
information which has reached us from several quarters, it would seem that 
their success has not always been as complete as was hoped for at first. It 
is then much to be feared that after four years, and even more, the estab- 
lishment of Huningue will not have succeeded in alone restocking with fish 
all the waters of France, and in making them produce the nii.e hundred 
millions of francs promised by Messrs. Berthol and Detzern. 

However this may be, the relations established between this piscifaciory 
and the College of France have furnished to M. Coste an opportunity of 
making some curious observations on the transport of the eggs, and the du- 
ration of their vitality after having been taken from the water. Some eggs 
ot salmon and trout, sent from Mulhousen by the diligence, were hatched in 
great numbers at the College of France. The precaution had simply been 

*Artificlal Fecundation of Fish. Society of Emulatiou of the Doubs, p. 18. 1851. 
tReport upon the facts f roved at Huningue from May 8, 1851, to May 7, 1852. 
Impractical Instructions in Pisiculture, p. 96. 



31 

taken of surrounding them with moist aquatic herbs in a tin box pierced 
with holeson the upper side * Other eggs, artificially fecundated, arranged 
in layers with wet sand in a pine bos, remained thus two months in a cold 
chamber. At the end of this time, they were only corrugated ; but having 
placed the bos In water to moisten them through the sand, M. Coste saw 
them soon resume their natural appearance, and they hatched son after. 

To render possible in his laboratory the experiments which he had under- 
taken, M. Coste had to adopt an apparatus occupjnng but little space, and 
fur which a simple thread of water would suffice. The arrangements which 
he chose, are very simple. This apparatus, which, by the way, we have of- 
ten seen in operation, is an assemblage of little troughs, arranged like 
steps on each side of an uppe rtrougli which serv<^s to supply all the others. 
The bottom of each trough is covered with a bed of gravel. A stop-cock 
lets fall a continuous thread of water into one end of the upper trough. 
A current is thus created towards the other end, and there an opening at 
the sides giving it passage to right and left, it breaks into two falls of water 
which go to feed the two troughs placed immediately below. These last 
have also ojieuings by which the waterfalls into the lower troughs, the num- 
ber of which may be increased at pleasure. 

After the hatching obtained by this apparatus, M. Coste was able to in- 
close t'TO thousand young salmon into a canal of baked earth, having fifty- 
five centimetres in length, (twenty-one inches,) fifteen in breadth, and eight 
in depth,' where, says he, the current is kept up by a simple thread of water 
of the size of a straw. He gave them for nourishment a paste formed 
of muscular flesh reduced to fine fibres, iu preference to the boiled blood 
of which Remy and Gehin made use. A salmon raised in this manner in 
an artificial pond, two metres in length, (eighty inches,) and fifty centime- 
tres in breadth, (nineteen and one-half inches,) was, at the age of six months, 
larger thin those of the same age taken in Scottish rivers, and represented 
in the work published under the assumed name of Ephemera.! Such are 
the principal results to be ascribed to M. Coste. He has recently collected 
his memoirs and reports into a volume, under the title of Practical InstruC' 
tions upon Pisciculture. He sets forth in these instiuctions the knowledge 
previously acquired, and those which he has drawn irom his personal expe- 
rience, and he adopts some of the improvements introduced by M. Millet in 
the pi-actiee of the new industry. We regret that the author of this little 

*Comptc3 Rcndus of the Academy of Soiences, Vol. xxxiii., p, 124. 1852. 
tThe Book of thoJSalmon, by Ephemera assisted by Arthur Young. See also the 
Agronomic Annals, Vol. i^ p. 234. 1851. 



32 

work written with mucli elegance and clearness, has not oftener cited the 
sources from which his information is taken. 

The same day upon which M. Coste presented his work to the Academy 
of Sciences, M. de Quatrefages read before this learned body some research- 
es, upon the milt of certain fresh water fish.'^ The question here treated of 
is fundamental, and before it had been resolved, it was impossible to use the 
necessary precision in artificial fecundations. This labor is then of great 
importance in the double point of view of comparative physiology and the 
application of zoology. We know by the experiments of Prevost of 
Geneva, and M. Dumas, that the milt owes its physiological properties to 
the presence of animalcules, which move in a manner very peculiar, and 
that all the fecundating power disappears the moment that these animalcules 
die. Now, M. de Quatrefages shows that the duration of these movements 
is extremely short in the case of fish, even in the most fivorable circum- 
stances. Thus in the milt of the brochet, diluted with water, all vitality ceases 
after eight minutes and ten seconds. The animalcules of the mullet are 
all dead after three minutes and ten seconds, and those of the carp after 
only three minutes. This period of activity is still more limited for the 
perch and barbel, since it only reaches two minutes and forty seconds for 
the former, and two minutes ten seconds for the latter. Neither is it equal 
for all the animalcules of the same fish, and half of them perish in much less 
time. Besides, the preceding figures are taken at a degree of heat most fa- 
vorable to the duration of these movements, and even slight variations above 
or below this point destroy them with great rapidity. The temperature 
which maintains longest the vitality of the animalcules is, for winter fish, 
like the trout, forty-one to forty-eight degrees, of Fahrenheit ; for those of 
the early spring, fifty to fifty-five degrees ; for those of the later spring, as 
the carp and the perch, sixty-three to sixty-eight ; and for the summer 
kinds, seventy-seven to eighty-seven. When the temperature somewhat ex- 
ceeds these limits, the increase of energy on the part of the animalcules, 
compensates, to a certain extent, for the shorter duration of then' vitality. 
These results apply to those which are disseminated through the water ; 
when they remain united in small masses, they die much more slowly. The 
peculiarities of the milt may thus be preserved for a much longer time, when 
it is not diluted, and especially when it is kept at a very low temperature. 
It may even be frozen without causing, in all cases, the death of the animal- 
cules. " M. Millet, who has aided me in all these researches," says M. de 

*Comptes Rendus of the Academy of Scianccs, Session of May 30, 1853, Vol. xxsvi. 
p. 936 ; Annals of Natural Sciences, Third Series, Vol. xix, p. 841, 1853. 



33 

Quatrefages, "l;as thought of putting the milt with ice into a tin box, so 
that the water may run out as the ice melts, and then to arrange this box 
in a second wooden one, pierced with very small holes, and itself filled with 
ice." Thanks to these precautions, the learned academician has been able 
to preserve the milt in a serviceable condition during sixty-four hours. It 
is worthy of remark that the fecundating property disappears first in that 
part of the male organ where the liquid is most completely elaborated, and 
endures some time longer in the deeper parts. 

These facts, taken together, will explain most of the failures resulting 
from operations ajiparcntly well conducted. They show that the manipula- 
tions must be accomplished with great quickness, and careful attention must 
be paid to the temperature of the water. We may conclude from them also 
that the season of spawning in certain localities, must vary in accordance 
with the atmospheric phenomena — that the short vitality of the milt is one 
of the causes which oppose the crossing of the different species in nature, 
and that the hitherto unexplained instinct which leads the trout and salmon 
to mount to the sources of water-courses, is owing to the need felt by 
these animals of finding a degree of temperature suitable to the fecundation 
and development of their eggs. M. de Quatrefages has also deduced from 
his researches, data of great value for practice, and eminently suited to reg- 
ulating the methods of artificial fecundation.* The results contained in the 
memoir of M. dc Quatrefages give to these methods a scientific regularity, 
which they have wanted hitherto, and tend to endow pisciculture with 
fixed and precise rules. 

To complete the summary picture of the progress which pisciculture has 
made from antiquity to our time, and to show its present condition, it re- 
mains to point out the numerous and important improvements which are 
owing to M. Millet, inspector of waters and forests.!- 

*Sinccthe male liquid, completely elaborated, losei first its fecundating properties, 
only that should he used in doubtful cases which is pressed from the milt itself. The 
vitality of the animalcules not being destroyed by cold in the male organ, the frozen 
milt is not to be rejected as useless. If the fecundation cannot be made till after the 
death of the animal, it is well to take out the milt and preserve it in a wet cloth. In 
view of the extreme shortness of life of the animalcules, and of the obstacles which the 
swelling of the envelope may oppose to fecundation, it is useful in the case of certain 
species to pour the eggs and tlie male product simultaneously into the same vessel, 
and thus to render the contact instantaneous. Of course the water must never be 
first impregnated witli the milt. 

tRcport to the Director General of Waters and Forests, upon the rcpopulating of 
the navigable and floating water-courses, by M. dc Saint Ouen, Administrator of the 

5 



34 

It is a well known fact that fish do not deposit all their spawn at once. 
The eggs do not all arrive together at a state of maturity. When left to 
herself the female returns several times to the place of spawning where the 
male always follows her, and it is only after a certain number of days that 
the delivery of the eggs is complete. Although it has been already remark- 
ed that only the ripe eggs leave the ovary and find their way into the ab- 
dominal cavity, yet the advice was always given to eflfect the artificial fe- 
cundation at once, by forcing out the spawn by pressure on the sides of the 
belly of the female. Without doubt, this practice in many cases was attend- 
ed with a violence as injurious to the development of a great number of the 
products as to the health of the animal thus operated upon. 

Struck with these inconveniences, and convinced of the advantages always 
following from a strict imitation of nature, M. Millet took pains to gather 
the eggs only in portions and in several days, as they became completely ripe, 
and to let them fall into the water simultaneously with the milt of the male_ 
As captivity has often a bad effect upon the generative functions of fishes, 
M. Millet only takes them at the moment of making the fecundations, and 
restores them to the river immediately after, at the same time tethering 
them with a pack-thread passed through the gills. They ive very well in 
this condition, and do not perceptibly sufiier from it. M. Millet has also 
sometimes made use of artificial spawning holes which call to mind those of 
Lund, but are more perfect. These are a kind of double-bottomed cages 
the first consisting of an open frame-work of bars, the second of a movable 
sieve of metallic cloth. The females, by rubbing against the bars, let fall 
their eggs which drop upon the sieve. The males being introduced into the 
apparatus at the same time, it generally happens that the fecundation is 
effected naturally. This method of gathering has the advantage of losing 

Forests. March, 1853, Annals of the Forests, pp. 272 and 420. July and August, 
1853. Independently of the various memoirs upon pisciculture, which we have hith- 
erto cited, it may be useful to consult the report of a commission of the king of Hol- 
land, having for title, Ilandlicdung tol de Kumtmatige Veremenigouldigen var Vis_ 
chen, 1853; some notes of M. de Camnont in the Norman Annual for 1850, and in 
the same collection an Essay upon the Multiplication of Fish in the department of La 
Manchi, by M, G. Sward de Becunlieu, 1854; as well as some letters of the Marquis 
of Wibraye and the Count of Port Gebard,1854; in the Analytic sketch of the Labors of 
the Academy of Rouen a note by M. Bergasse on Artificial Fecundation applied to the 
Salmon, 1853; and some Researches into the Natural History of the Salmon, by M. A 
de Cignon, 1853; finally, various observations of M. M. Gehiu, Richard de Behagne 
in the Bulletin of the Agricultural Society of Paris, Vol. vi. p. 461 and 469, 1851; of 
M. Noblet, ibidem,YQ\. vii., p. 403, 1852, and of M. Queuard ibidem Vol. viii,, p. 95> 
1853. 



35 

no portion of the eggs, while thoi-e is p risk of this in holding the fcmiilc by 
a cord in rivers. 

The hatching apparatus used by M. Millet varies a little with circum- 
stances, but remains always simple, convenient and economical. If the de- 
velopment of the egg is to take place out of the water in which the parents 
live, whether in an apartment or under a shed, a vessel of any description 
is taken, having a capacity of thirty to thirty-five litres, (eight to nine gal- 
lons,) and on the bottom of this, gravel, sand and charcoal are heaped up so 
as to constitute a filter. A purified water runs from this reservoir by a 
stop-cock situated underneath it, and falls into troughs placed like steps, 
which may be multiplied at pleasure. This arrangement is entirely similar, 
as we see, to that which M. Coste had already chosen, but M. Millet has 
added an improvement, which, we hasten to say, the learned professor of 
the College of France has at once adopted in his turn. 

However pure running water may be, it always bears with it and deposits 
at the bottom, which it covers, foreign particles, which, if they rested upon 
the eggs, would finally surround them w^ith a sort of slime favorable to the 
development of byssus and mould. To meet this objection, M. Millet thought 
of suspending the eggs a little below the surface of the water. M. Vogt*-' 
had already taken the precaution to place them in a muslin bag, permeable 
on all sides, which he threw into the lake after having fastened it to a stake 
or kept it in place by a large stone. Starting upon the same principle, M. 
Millet has arrived at a surer and more complete result. He places the 
eggs upon sieves, which, little rods, sliding on the edges of the tubs, hold at 
the desired height. This skillful experimenter has successively employed 
sieves of various substances, of hair, of silk, of willow, &c., and has finally 
given the preference to galvanized metallic cloth, which have more solidity 
and durability, do not spoil, are easily cleaned by the help of a brush, and 
are only very rarely attacked by sea-weed. 

The expense of outfit of such an apparatus is quite insignificant. The 
working consists merely in filling the reservoir every morning and evening, 
in moving tlie sieves once a day, and taking away the eggs which may be- 
come opaque. For many years tlie eggs of trout, of salmon, of the umber, 
&c., have been developed in this way, and hatched in considerable quanti- 
ties in the same apartment which the experimenter occupies at Paris, iu the 
middle of the rue Castiglione. 

When the process can be carried on in the water of a stream itself, of a 
lake or of a pond, Bt. Millet recommends the employment of double sieves 

^Embryology of the Salfton, Natural History of Fresh Water Fish, by L. Agaasiz, 
.16,1842. , 



36 

of metallic cloth, wliich may be kept at a suiiable height by the help of 
floaters, and which follow all the changes of the level water. For the species 
which spawn in sleeping water, he lines the double sieve with aquatic plants, 
or limits himself to placing the eggs in large shallow tubs with plants which 
prevent the water from corruption. When the fecundated eggs are to be 
transported to great distances, M. Millet advises placing them in a flat box, 
in quite thin layers, between two wet cloths. In this state he has sent them 
to Florence, where they have reached the hands of M. Vaj and the Profes- 
sor Cozzi, after a journey of twenty or twenty-five days, and have not failed 
to hatch soon after. The use of moist linen is preferable to that of a((uatic 
plants; the linen dries less rapidly, and facilitates the unpacking, which, in 
the other cases, requires much time and care. The Marquis of Vibraye, to 
whom the Sologue owes so many useful improvements, and who has already 
introduced on his estates numerous trout produced by artificial fecundation, 
has also made use, with advantage, of small wadded cushions. When the 
eggs to be dealt with are very delicate, and are to be transported during the 
summer, M. Millet sometimes employs the little portable ice box, of which 
we have already given the description. 

As soon as the young fish have completely absorbed their umbilical vesi- 
cule, that is to say, some weeks after the hatching, the author of these curious 
experiments is of opinion that it is best not to try to nourish them in captivity 
but to dismiss them at once into the waters where they will have to live, 
taking care, however, to place them suitably where they will find the spawn 
of frogs, lymnites, planorbes, &c. They shoultj commence at once to seek 
for their prey, and thus avoid the suffering from change of water, of nour- 
ishment, and of habits, to which they will necessarily be subject, if raised 
artificially in basins not communicating with the waters which they must 
inhabit. 

It is principally in the department of the Euro, the Aisne and the Oise, 
that M. Millet has put in practice these various methods. Affidavits em- 
ating from the local authorities, bear witness to the important results which 
he has obtained. M. Millet has conducted, at the same time, a series 
of delicate observations, which have already led to some happy applica- 
tions.* He has exapiined the action of salt or brackish water on the errtrs 
of fish, which leave the sea to spawn in fresh water, and he has seen that it 
is injurious to their development in ordinary cases, which gives the practi- 
cal reason of the emigration of these animals. Nevertheless, salt, which 
would destroy the healthy eggs, has the singular property of healing them, 

*Comptes Reudus of the Academy of Sciences, Vol. xxxviii,, session of December 26, 
1853. 



37 

when attacked by white spots. These spots, which probably spread from 
the surace to the centre, and would lead to the destruction of the eggs, if 
allowed to allowed to increase, disappear in water very slightly salted, and 
when they are taken in time, the young fish may thus be saved. It results 
also, from the observations of M. Millet, that the mortality of the eggs alwa^^s 
reaches its masiniuni at the epoch when the embryo begins to form ; accord- 
ingly, he advises transporting them only when the eyes beqome visible, or 
rather innnediatcly after the fecundation. He has remarked finally, that 
the white spots on the one hand, and the sea-weed and byssus on the other, at 
tack much more rarely the eggs of trout and salmon, at a low temperature, 
than in one which exceeds fifty-four degrees. . 

Here terminates the rapid exposition of the applications fur- 
nished by zoology to the economy of ponds and water-courses, and of the 
progress which this branch of industry has made of late years. The labors 
of Reray and Gehin, and those of M. de Quatrefages, of M. Coste and M. 
Millet, represent the present state of this department of agricultural science. 
To them belongs the honor of having regulated and perfected the methods, 
and of having determined the basis of a cultivation, before very vague and 
precarious. 

III. 

The processes which we have analyzed are not all equally adapted for 
easy and profitable application. It remains then to compare the respective 
advantages of them, to determine the combined measures which piscicultu- 
rists ought to adopt. 

The first care to be taken, when it is desired to stock a river or pond, is 
to learn what species of fish will best adapt themselves to the circumstances 
which happen to be united there. To escape the danger of certain failure, 
it is first of all necessary that the nature, the ordinary temperature, the 
depth, and the various qualities of the waters to be enriched, should agree 
with the instincts, habits and way of life of the animals to be developed 
there. These recommendations are found in all books upon the subject, but 
cannot be too often repeated. It is most certainly from the neglect of these 
proprieties, and want of appreciation of them, that certain pisciculturists 
have seen their attempts miscarry, when they were otherwise skilfully exe- 
cuted. 

When, therefore, the ground, as it were, has been studied in advance, 
and it has been determined what sort of fish has the best chance of prosper- 
ing there, the individuals necessary for the multiplication of the chosen 
species should not be pa-ocurcd except at the very season of spawning, since 



very often tlie products are spoiled in the bodies of fislies which are con- 
demned to close captivity. Tnis inconvenience does not present itself if 
the animals can be placed in reserve in iriclosares near the rivers or ponds 
in which they have been caught. Othervrise they may be held by a cord 
in the same places where they have lived. It is important, before effect- 
ing the fecundation, to pay attention to to the temperature of the water, 
which has so groat an influence upon the properties of the milt, as M. de 
Quatrefages has so clearly shown, and probably also upon the vitality of the 
egg itself. Although M. Vogt has seen the eggs of the palee^ prosper after 
they had been taken in ice, this extreme cold is generally sufficient to de- 
stroy them. 

The gathering of the male and female elements should be made on differ- 
ent occasions and in several days. It seems useful, in many cases, 
to guard the products from all csterior influences, and not to take them 
from their natural medium. For this purpose a male and female are taken 
and inclined near each other, at the surface of the water. They are then 
bent gently upward, which produces a strong contraction, and generally 
serves to create a flow of the ripe products. If the exit offers any diffi- 
culty, it may be assisted by passing the fiuger under the belly, but without 
any effoit. The simultaneous or almost simultaneous mixture of the eggs 
and the milt, is necessary in most cases, since with certain fish, as the 
trout, the animalcules of the milt do not live even a moment, and with oth- 
ers, as the carp, the mucilaginous envelope of the egg swells rapidly in the 
water, and then opposes itself to the impregnation. For the last reason, it 
is important always to refrain from washing the eggs before fecundation, as 
some persons had advised doing. 

The eggs once fecundated are placed in an apparatus like those of M. 
Coste and M. Millet, but it appears to us preferable in all cases, when pos- 
sible, to employ the double sieve or floating inculator of the last experimenter. 
The fecundation is then effected in the lower part of the sieve, placed in a 
tub full of water, and after the cover is put on, the whole is transported to 
the river which is to be furnished ; in this way, the spawn undergoes no 
change of water, from its exit from the belly of the female to the period of 
its development. If the eggs are unencumbered, they are allowed to fall to 
the bottom of the sieve. If they are adherent, like those of the carp, the 
tench, or the barbel, care is taken to introduce beforehand into the sieve 
some aquatic plants or twigs. The little apparatus is furnished with float- 
ers, fastened to stakes by a cord, by which it is easy to draw it to the bank, 

* A kinJ allied to tlic salmon. 



39 

when it is to bo examinod. After the young fish are hatchci:!, and their 
umbilical vcsicule is completely absorbed, the sieve is opened, and they are 
thus dispersed in the very places where they are to live. With this view, 
shallow places are chosen, which the fry generally prefer, and which are 
not frequented by the large fish, or I'athsr iuclosures near the water-courses. 
The fish of this early age have great agility, and commonly escape the pur- 
suit of their enemies by si][uatting among the pebbles, and concealing them- 
selves in the grass or rojts of trees. They then feed naturally upon lyni- 
nites, planorbes, small worms, or the spawn of frogs, but it soon becomes 
useful to throw them the refuse of the shambles or the kitchen, and, gene- 
rally, as M. Coste has advised, all animal substances which are not made 
use of It would seem, however, that some of these substances may become 
injurious to the fish, and M. Sivard de Jieaulieu has remarked that his 
trout always died after eating earth salamanders. The putrefaction of the 
substances which are not eaten, offers no inconvenience in a mass of water 
frequently renewed like that of a brook, while for this reason, and many 
others the artificial nourishment of young fish in narrow reservoirs is almost 
impracticable. They should, therefore, always be dispersed after the ab- 
sorption of their vesicules, without attempts to raise them painfully in small 
apparatus. 

These various operations are, as we sec, very simple and easy, and may be 
brought to a good result by any body with little outlay of time and ex- 
pense ; but it is evident that success depends greatly upon the tact and 
foresight of the operator, and that here, as in all branches of industry, indi- 
vidual skill will always have groat influence upon the result. Without 
doubt, also, a prolonged and sufficiently extensive experience will soon at- 
tain to further improvements in the application of the new methods, and 
reduce greatly the chances of failure. Every thing, then, gives reason to 
hope that at an early period pisciculture will be naturalized among the use- 
ful sciences, and that it is destined to solve one of the important terms of 
the great problem of cheap living. 

This result, so desirable, would be greatly expedited if the government 
should decide to take some energetic measures. It should cause to be com- 
pletely revised, by competent men, the legislation of the fluvial and marine 
fisheries, and should bring the system of artificial fecundation into opera- 
tion in all the fresh waters of France, at the same time that a service oi 
observation and vigilance should be organized upon our coasts. In utter- 
ing this wish, we are only the echo of all the learned men and economists 
who have touched upon this question. 



40 

Already, iiideecl, the state has made a first step in the path where we 
should like to see it wholly cuter. It has decreed the piscifuctory of Hun- 
ingue. We are far from dcuying the services which this establishment may 
render by its consequences ; but it is clearly proved that it will never suffice 
for entirely restocking the waters of France, and meets very imperfectly the 
present wants of pisciculture. If there are too great obstacles to putting 
this vast trial in practice over the whole surface of the country, it would at 
least be easy for the state to undertake it in more limited, though still con- 
siderable proportions, and witliout charging the budget with any new bur- 
den. For this purpose it need only profit by the resources offered by 
the administration of waters and forests. In fiict, this adminis- 
tration disposes of a surface of canals and brooks which reaches 
nearly 8,000 kilometres, (5,000 miUs,) and has a personal force quite ready 
and trained to the various practices for the husbandry of the waters. The 
number of its simple fisheries police amount to 427, without counting the 
general police, sub-inspectors, and inspectors which direct the others, and 
who arc all prepared by their previous studies for applications of this kind. 
Here is a service extensively organized, which would be admirably adapted 
to experiments of pisciculture on a large scale, and which would not even 
thereby be turned from its legitimate functions. 

It is to be hoped that those who are interested will not fail to be struck 
with these easy advantages, and that they will try to attain to at least a part 
of the results promised by the new industry. Eelying upon their own re- 
sources, the proprietors have not hesitated to undergo the risks of the trial ; 
but apart from their isolated and limited efforts, does it not belong to the 
State to give prosperity and extension to the methods devised by Jacobi, 
and already carried, by men of science in France, to so high a degree of 
perfection. 

JULES HAIME. 

Revue des Deux Mondes, June, 1854. 



Extracts from the transactions of the Connecticut State Agricultural 
Society, Jor the year 185G. 

EXPERIMENTS IN ARTIFICIAL FISH-BREEDING. 



BY E. C. KELLOGG. 

So much has been written by savans upon artificial fish-breeding, it is 
with no little delicacy that I attempt a compliance with your request, to 
furnish a paper upon that interesting subject. ^Ve are apt to hear of tran- 
sactions in a foreign land, or of events which take place in a remote section 
of our own country even, with far less interest, than vdien similar occurrences 
fall within the range of our immediate observation. The more remote 
the scene of some wonderful achievement, the more doubt of its reality will 
be entertained. Distance, instead of lending enchantment to the mental 
view, especially when the dollar is the object to be discovered, seems rather 
to blur the vision, and we desire something more tangible whereon to rest 
our gaze. If the man of science regards the statement of any novel occur- 
rence which is contrary to the ordinary course of nature, with doubts, and 
will not be convinced of its truth until the fact is demonstrated before his 
eyes, how much more will the casual observer doubt the practicability of so 
extraordinary an idea as that of raising fish by an artificial process, and es- 
pecially of its one day becoming a matter of immense public importance, and 
perhaps a source of wealth to himself I That fish may be artificially bred, 
the scientific world is well aware. 

The discovery, a century ago, by Jacobi, a skillful German naturalist ; 
the writings of many since his day ; experiments for multiplying salmon in 
the waters of Great Britain, as pursued by Shaw in 1837, and Boecius in 
1841 ; and above all, the re-discovery by Gehin and llemy, two illiterate 
fishermen of the Vosges of France, with the practical result of their labors 
since 1842, render it unnecessary to say anything to establish the fact in 
the scientific mind. 

But we, the common people, also, are slow to believe and slower to act. 
It is only necessary to consider for a moment the agricultural department, 
in a single particular, to prove the correctness of the assertion. When 

6 



42 

we observe so many decayed orchards around us, and farms almost or 
entirely destitute of choice fruit, the position is established. People 
are unwilling to engage in any new routine of industry, until it can be 
clearly demonstrated that by so doing, a large profit will ensue. There is, 
perhaps, no cl.iss of community so slow of improvement as the agriculturist. 
No, not that, the old fashioned '■'farmer.^'' Of course, there are many noble 
exceptions, worthy of emulation. But if a barren stream, once alive with 
sahnon and trout, flows through the fair fields of the enterprisiug tiller of 
the soil, it serves well to water his stock, and by a little trouble he constructs 
a dam and has a fine place wherein to wash his sheep. This is all he wants 
or expects of his sparkling stream except, perhaps, once a year a " mess of 
snckers.'" If he will have a treat of fresh fish, he must content himself with 
these, wait the arrival of alewive* and shad, or pay his dollar for a pound of 
salmon or trout. He will not think of raising upon his own premises either 
of these delicate fish. He little dreams that the dam already constructed 
would make a reservoir for more trout than his necessities would require, 
and that it is possible, with an outlay often or twenty dollars, the little pond 
would yield a greater annual income than the acre of ground which sur- 
rounds it. Perhaps he has heard his father tell of the time when salmon 
were abundant in his ancient pasture lot, but he scarcely dreams that they 
might again be seen leaping the cascade over the little dam. Talk to him 
of raising fish artificially, and he will laugh at the idea. He would look 
upon the undertaking as utterly futile. Nor do I wonder. Such enter- 
prises with favorable results, are so recent, and the necessity of legislative 
enactments, preparing the way and protecting him in his efi"orts, is so appa- 
rent, it is no marvel that he is faithless or slow. 

' My object is, to give a brief history of what has been done in our mids t 
in the way of breeding fish by the artificial process. Learning what has 
been accompli^hed in Europe, and also by Dr. GarlickandPro'essor Ackley, 
of Cleveland Ohid, I determined, in connection with my friend, D. W. 
Chapman of the city of New York, to make an experiment. Accordingly, 
in the summer of 1855, visiting the town of Simsbury, the scene of sport for 
anglers, far and near, we found upon the grounds of a friend, a fine spring 
ruhning through a deep ravine, and emptying into the Farmington river. 
Near the source of the spring we built a slight dam, raising a pond of some 
three feet head. Farther down, we threw across the ravine a second and 
larger dam, making a tolerably capacious reservoir, intended for the parent 
stook. Several times during the season, we visited the neighboring streams, 



43 

and after considerable toil, we managed to secure a goodly number of trout, 
mostly, however, of small size, which we placed in the pond. 

As wc pushei our way through the dense alders along the margin of 
Stratton Br:ok, we found the exercise of transporting each a pail of water, 
wherein to keep alive the fish, rather raori) trou'}lesom3 than when our only 
encumbrance was t'ae rod and simple creel ; and as limb-weary at night, we 
discharged our meager plunder, we began to realize that we were prosecuting 
a work of labor, as well as enjoying sport. But like Gehin and Remy, the 
fishermen of Bresse, by our poor success we were the more convinced of the 
necessity of doing something for the restoration of our favorite fish, which 
were so rapidly diminishing in every stream. At length, having secured 
our little stock, wc erected a temporary shanty at the lower side of the 
upper dam, to serve as a hatching house. A small stream of water was 
conduct :d by a pipe and flowed continuously into a box partly filled with 
gravel. In November, my friend made a visit to the wor's and conducted 
the process of spawning a number of the larger fish, and fecunda ing their 
eggs after the prescribed method. The eggs were then placed upon the 
box and left to abide their time for hatching, A particular description of 
the process of manipulation will be given further along. 

In the course of a few weeks it was apparent that embryo fish were 
being developed in some of the eggs, and in nine or ten weeks about seventy- 
five trout were hatched. 

The fry were kept in the box a month or two and then were allowed to 
run into the pond, below. The next fall, we found them with the old fish, 
and apparently doing well. 

Last summer, I was induced by the convenience of the Connecticut river 
water on my premises, to make the experiment of artificial fish-breeding on 
a small scale, at home. During the season I placed a number of trout in 
a little pond which I had excavated in the garden. In the cellar I arrang- 
ed a box with several partitions, filled it partly with <:ravel, and laid it in a 
slanting position, so that the partings formed a series of steps, and water 
from the public reservoir was conducted to it through a lead pipe. Novem- 
ber, the time for spawning, having arrived, I took a female trout, holding it 
firmly in my left hand, the back of the fish in the palm, and with the right 
hand, gently pressed upon the abdomen from top to bottom. If the eggs 
arc fully matured, by this operation they will readily be forced from the 
ovary and apirt out like a stream of water. After collecting the eggs of sev- 
eral fish in a vessel containing about a c^uart of water, taking a male fish in 
the same manner and by the same process, I expressed the milt into th» 



44 

vessel with the eggs. The milt communicating with the water, immediately 
changed it to a milky hue, and after stirring the eggs so that they would be 
sure to come in contact with the milt, and letting them remain a few min- 
utes, the process of fecundation was completed. I then placed the eggs upon 
the gravel in the several apartments of the hatching-bos, where a small 
stream of water was running, and they were left to hatch. In spawning the 
fish 1 found some that were not mature, and it was with difficulty that- the 
eggs were expressed; others I found that would not yield at all. Such 
were kept several days or weeks, until their full time should arrive. Of 
some two thousand eggs that were expressed, I am now convinced that 
comparatively few were in a mature state, and, consequently, most of them 
were unfecun lated and died in a short time. 

I found the process of expressing the ova and the milt at first somewhat 
difficult, the fish in its struggles would so easily squirm through my hands ; 
but by a little practice I soon was able to perform the delicate operation, I 
fancy, equal to the most skillful practitioner ; for of a dozen or more that 
were subjected to the manipulating operation, not one seemed to have suffer- 
ed from its effects. 

The process of incubation went on very slow ; the temperature of the 
water being -ome 10 degrees below that of spring water. In abcut four 
weeks, however, eye-spots began to appear, and in about eleven weeks a few 
fish were hatched. Those first out, were from eggs spawned in November. 
Others spawned in December, now more than one hundred days in the water, 
are just beginning to hatch. Of all the eggs deposited in the box, only 
some sixty seem to have been fe3undated, or at least to have shown signs of 
development. The reason for so small a yield mast be attributed in a great 
degree, to the immature condition of the egg, and somewhat, perhaps, to the 
excessive coldness of the river water. On testing the temperature, I found 
the mercury frequently as low as about 35 degrees. 

In both experiments we labored under disadvantages, which, doubtless, 
another trial would in a groat measure overcome. Had the attempt in the 
cellar, pr.ved wholly ineffectual, I should have been less surprised, than I 
am at the present success. What with inexperience, a dearth of mature 
eggs, the most unfavorable arrangements for water, and the lack of other 
important accessories, I am entirely satisfied with the result. We were not 
aware that it was so absolutely imperative to observe the {precise conditions, 
in order to insure success j and although the conditions are, for the most 
part, carefully laid down and aie apparent to the understanding, s ill, a lit- 
tle practical experience, in order to knmc them, must prove extremely advan- 



45 

tagcous. An nccount of recent experiments in Europe states, that out of 
forty thousand eggs, unfavorably conuitioneJ, twenty thousand were suc- 
essfully hatched. On another occasion two hundred and {-ixty thousand 
ova were deposited and al', with trifling exception, were hatched. Again, 
of several thousand ova taken from a single salmon, every one produced a 
fish in fifty-seven days. In an interesting " Treatise on artificial Fish- 
Brecding," translated and edited by W. II, Fry, of New York, after de- 
scribing Mr. Gehin's process of fecundation an I incubation of trout's eff^s, 
the description continues with his observations of the phenomena of hatch- 
ing; thus, "The tail comes first from the eggs, and the pieces of the fine 
skin or shell torn by it, form the two hinder fins. The head next appears 
at the other end, and the torn shell there forms the forward fins. The lower 
part of the egg forms the belly, and the upper part next is broken and the 
back appears. The shell or skin which enveloped the embryo is not detach- 
ed irom the newly born fish, but becomes a part of, and is absorbed by it." 
My observations of the same phenomena differ most essentially from 
those of Mr. (Jehin; I do not discover any uniformity in the manner which 
the young fish emerges from the shell.. Sometimes the tail first appears, 
and sometimes the head, and not unfrequently the belly is first seen 
protruding ; and ii;stead of the shell becoming a part of the fish and form- 
ing the fins, I have invariably observed the entire shell completely detached. 
A few days since, I was exaR:ining an egg, when only the head of the fish 
was out, and taking it between my t'.iumb and finger, by a gentle pressure, 
forced the fish comple'ely from the shell. Again, I was examining with a 
magnifying glass another egg, and while pressing it slightly, saw it burst 
and the entire fish except the head appeared. In this state it remained a 
day or so, when it became wholly free. 

Possibly the trout which Mr. Gehin observed, were of a dificrent species, 
and it is possible their manner of hatching is also different. The young 
fish are extremely delicate, and for many days by the aid of a magnifying 
glass, the motion of the blood from the pulsations of the heart can be dis- 
tinctly seen through the transparent ti.sues. 

The newly hatched fish vary in size according to the size of the egg, and 
are from three to five eighths of an inch long. Their growth is quite per- 
ceptible from week to week and it is interci-ting to observe how soon they 
practice the habits of shyness, so natural to older fish. Those which were 
hatched about the beginning of February, are now nearly an inch in length. 
The umbilical bladder which has furnished their sustenance for weeks is 



46 

nearly absorbed and it is almost time for them to show signs of hunger. 
They are growing finely, are lively and seem in perfect health. 

It may not be inappropriate, here, to state, that the experiment in the 
cellar has been a double one ; that is, I have tested the practicability of ar- 
tificial fecundation and incubation, and also that of keeping a large num- 
b.r offish in circumscribed quarters, and with a small supply of wa'.er. In 
the fall I removed from the pond in the garden, the old stock, about forty 
in number, some of the largest of which were those manipulated, to a half 
hogshead in the cellar. After the operations of spawning, they were lank 
and poor, and although supplied with a stream of water a good share of the 
time no larger than a str w, they all lived, fed readily, and are now plump 
and in excellent condition. I can see no reason why fish may not be stall, 
fed, so to speak, and fattened as well as other animals. 

The experiments which I have been interested in, prove to ray mind, 
most conclusively, and independent of the glowing accounts of success in 
France and England, that artificial Pisciculture may be prosecuted on an 
extensive scale and to immense advantage to community at large. I am 
also persuaded that t will be of little avail to attempt such an experiment 
without knowing and regarding all the important conditions, so necessary 
to success. That those conditions may be well understood, and that each 
year's experience will demonstrate rapid progress in the art, I have no rea- 
son to doubt. 

What practical result will accrue to our community from this scientific 
development which has awakened the attention of governments in Europe, 
remains to be proved. I should like to see the enterprising Yankee, who 
would venture an investment, sufficient to carry on a fish-breeding establish- 
ment successfully. There are enough ready to purchase mill-sites and erect 
manufactories, because they are pretty sure of a profitable return. This 
they understand ; but fish-breeding, as a source of profit, would be a new 
business and they will be cautious. They are not censurable. I think, as 
in France, the State should first lend a patronizing hand. Some sort of 
commission should be instituted. The subject should be investigated and 
if found worthy, an appropriation should be granted, works established, 
wholesome protective enactments passed, and suitable encouragement given 
to all who might venture in the enterprise. 

From what has been done in Europe, prophetic vision is unnecessary to 
see that at no distant period, with proper legislative care, our rivers and 
streams, now impoverished or barren, will teem with salmon and trout, as 
well as with delicate fish from foreign waters, afibrding food and luxury to 



47 

all. Is there a country that possesses greater facilities for such au entcr- 
prizc ? Wiiat beautiful rivers, lakes and mountain streams ! Let the spin- 
dle whirl and be protec'ed, and let the salmon and the trout also come in 
fjr a consideration at least. 

The man who would make two dollars out of one, would hail the oppor- 
tunity. The epicure would smack his lips at the thought of a pound of sal- 
mon or trout at a quarter of the present value, — the day laborer would re- 
joice that he could obtain his money's worth for a shilling, and every true 
lover of the angle, at the first favorable expression of the wisdom of the 
state, would shout for joy. 

What benefits might not imagination farcy, in store for the varied inter- 
ests of community ! Religiously considered, the mere observer of outward 
forms as well as the true Christian would be enabled to keep more rigidly 
the Lenten days. Morally, man would have less occasion to wrong his fel- 
low man ; and physically, the inner man would be less a slave to outer con- 
ditions. 

As a learned writer informs us, that fish should enter more largely into 
the culinary department, as an article of diet, so soon as the novel art will 
allow us to a';lopt the suggestion, we may indulge the hope that instead of 
the many Calvin Edsons, who now mope around, ghostly, gaunt and grim, 
there will be more who will approximate the Daniel Lambert school of solid 
men, each like Shakespeare's justice, 

'* In fair round belly with good salmon lined." 

It is gratifying to know that some of our sister states are manifesting an 
interest in the subject, and when the practicability of success is rendered 
more apparent and its vast importance as a matter of public economy is 
considered, I feel confident that something will be done by way of en- 
couragement, by the legislature of our own State. 

Respectfully yours, 

E. C. KELLOGG. 

H. A. Dyer, Esq., Secretary State Agricultural Society. 
Haktford, March 27th, 1867. 



Mr. Dyer, 

Dear Sir : — The greater portion of the following article was contained 
in a paper read by me several months ago before the Natural History 
Society of Hartford. It has been prepared hastily, at moments stolen from 



48 

ail avocation by no means congenial to the spirit of the subject, — and I am 
quite sensible of its imperfections. 

The art of artificial fish breeding has for several years occupied my 
thoughts. In 1853, 1 attempted, in a report on a kindred subject, to attract 
the attention of our Legislature to the developments which had then been 
made, and to avraken a sense of their importance in re!erence to the re-es- 
tablishment of salmon in our waters. At that time, however, so far as 
I know, little had been written or effected in this country, and I was not 
prepared to demonstrate the practicability of what I proposed. Four years 
have elapsed, and Pisciculture has attained such a rank among the t coaom- 
ic arts, that an apology can no longer exist for neglecting its claims. 
Yours truly, &c , 

J. C. COMSTOCK. 

Hartford, March, 1857. 

PISCICULTUEE, 

SALMON BREEDING. 

Althougti it is at a quite recent date that the art of Pisciculture, or the 
Artificial lireedmg of Pish, has attracted, to any great extent, the notice of 
scientific men, and has been extensively applied to economic purposes, yet 
the main facts upon which it is founded, as well as the principal processes 
for carrying it into eficct, were understood many years ago. In this as in 
many c tlier instances, we find only another illustration of the truth of the 
verb, "there is nothing new under the sun !" The ancient Romans undoubt- 
edly knew something of this art, and their epicurean tastes led them to invent 
many processes for preserving and fattening fish. The Chinese also are said 
to have paid considerable attention to fish-raising, and some knowledge of the 
art of breeding fish from the egg would appear still to exist among them. 
Something of this art was also probably known to those priestly epicures, the 
monks of the middle ages. Whether they understood the mode of artificial im- 
pregnation, as at present practiced, may admit of a doubt, but it seems certain 
that they eiiected, on a large scale, introduction of foreign fishes into the ponds 
and streams, which always formed an appendage to groat monastic houses. 
There are good grounds for supposing that the carp, the gr.iyling, thecharr, 
and several other species, were thus introiuced into English waters, when 
England was Catholic, and when the great number of fast days rendered a 
corresponding supply of fish necessary. But it is not as a matter of anti- 
quarian curiosity that 1 desire now to present the subject in question, but 



49 

rather to consider it in its modern and utilitarian aspect. The 
credit of the modern discovery of this long neglected art, unquestion- 
ably belongs to M. Jacobi, a German gentleman, who, in the year 1763, 
communicated to the Hanover Magazine, an interesting account of his 
plan for the breeding of trout by artificial impregnation of their ova; and 
it is not a little remarkable, that this plan contains the substance of nearly 
all that has since been discovered in relation to the art, though Jacobi does 
not seem to have been aware of the extent to which it may be applied. His 
invention, as he states, was the result of experiments made during a period 
or DO less than forty years. Though the process of Jacobi attracted some 
attention among the scientific men of the time, and was the means of stock- 
ing many streams in Holland, yet it appears to have fallen into disuse, and 
to have slumbered a loni:; time amono; those forgotten inventions which are 

o o o 

so often claimed as new discoveries by a succeding age. 

Sir Humphrey Davy, in his delightful " Salmonia" alludes to Jacobi's 
experiments, of which he gives a short account, and recommends a trial of 
Jacobi's method to those who propose to stock ponds with trout. He also 
dilates upon the practicability of introducing by these means, various for- 
eign species of fish into the waters of England. Sir Humphrey also ap- 
pears to have tested some of Jacobi's experiments, and to have entirely sat- 
isfied himself of their cori'cctness and value. 

About fifty years later than the time of Jacobi, that is to say, from 1830 
to 1835, a series of really accurate and scientific observations were made in 
regard to the peculiar habits of fish at the spawning season,— habits upon 
which the whole science of artificial propagation is founded. These obser- 
vations would appear to have been originally instituted by Dr. Knox, of 
Edinburgh, who published a paper on the subject in the Transactions of the 
Royal Society. He watched the pi'ocess of spawning, in the the case of the 
salmon, and observed the progressive development of the ova, and of the 
young fishes after exclusion. His hints were followed up, at about the same 
period, by a most acute and patient observer, Mr. John Shaw, who devoted 
himself for several years to a series of well-managi d observations of the na- 
tural history of the salmon ; and it is to him that the world is indebted for 
the most interesting information it possesses on this interesting subject. 
Mr. Shaw does not appear, however, to have been aware of the importance 
of these experiments of his, as connected with the re-stocking of rivers with 
fish, — by far ihe most important purpose to which they can be applied. There 
had been a long and bitter dispute going on among British naturalists and 
anglers, as to the identity of a small fish abounding in many of the English 

7 



60 

and Scotch streams, and usually called parr or pink, with the true salmon, — 
some contending that the parr was the young of the salmon, and others that 
it was a full grown species of the salmon family, separate and distinct from 
any other. It was principally for the purpose of settling this vexed ques- 
tion, that Mr. Shaw's experiments were undertaken, — and he succeeded 
most satisfactorily in demonstrating the truth of the assertion, that the parr 
is the young of the salmon. But he did a great deal more than this ; and 
the facts, thoroughly proved, and clearly stated, which he details in regard 
to the mode of spawning, time of hatching, progressive growth, migration to 
and from the sea, and other peculiar habits of the salmon, will always pos- 
sess the greatest value as a foundation for the entire practicability of re- 
storing that splendid fish to waters from which it has been exterminated. 
At about the same time, experiments were also made by Mr. Andrew Young, 
of Scotland, and by Mr. Boccius, an engineer, at Harrowsmith, England. 

It is to France, however, that the honor must be awarded, of having first 
carried into practical eifect, and applied to a useful purpose and on an ex- 
tensive scale, the information afforded by the observations of the British na- 
turalists. There is no government in the world which has always been so 
ready to encourage and protect inventions which tend to a development of the 
economical resources af the country, as that of France. It is not surprising 
therefore, that when it was announced, something more than ten years ago, 
that two poor but ingenious fishermen of the department of Vosges, M. M. 
Gehin, and Eeme, had acquired the art of breeding fishes, in any quantity, 
and had actually caused the salmon, trout, perch, aud other species, to 
abound in waters which had long been deserted by them, the Natural Academy 
of Sciences and the government, should have taken these benefactors of man- 
» kind under their especial patronage, and aiforded them the means of perse- 
cuting their experiments on a large scale, in various portions of the country. 
From this time forward Pisciculture has taken its place as a well found- 
ed and most important science — and it is now thoroughly understood in 
most of the civilized countries of Europe. In Germany, France, England, 
Scotland, it has already proved of the utmost importance to the well-being 
of society. It has furnished a supply of wholesome, agreeable, and cheap 
food, to a class of persons, and in districts, where want and poverty have 
heretofore prevailed. It has given rise to a lucrative and extensive branch 
of industry, and has afforded occupation to thousands of persons. It has, 
in fact, particularly in many portions of France, opened up a new and inex. 
haustible source of wealth and prosperity. Let us hope that the United 
States — and especially the New England States, (for to them it is of perhapa 



51 

greater neoessity than to any of the others) — will not long be found to lag ia 
the rear of a development of social industry so exceedingly important, 
and so easily attained. 

Having thus very briefly touched upon the history of Pisciculture, it is 
time to recur to those facts upon which is founded its application to the re- 
storation offish to those waters which are destitute of them, or from which 
certain species have gradually disappeared. To illustrate this branch of 
our subject, I shall refer, sufficiently at length, to the results of the observa- 
tions of Mr. Shaw and Mr. Young on the salmon, since it is to this particu- 
lar species that I desire to direct the attention of those into whose hands 
the work which contains these observations may fall. 

The salmon enters the rivers from sea, during the spring and early sum- 
mer. The female salmon precedes the male, entering the rivers about a 
month earlier than her mate. They remain for some time near the 
mouths of the rivers, in tide water, where they g3t rid of certain parasitical 
animals which become fixed upon thein, during their stay in the salt water. 
During the summer months they proceed up the rivers, in search of proper 
places to deposit their spawn. For this purpose they seek the cool and 
shallow streams which are tributary to the main river, in which the water runs 
with a rapid motion, ovcr a gravelly and sandy bed, and where it becomes 
high'y charged with the oxygen taken up from the atmosphere. Here 
the male and female salmon pair — the male driving a^vay with great 
vigor and activity, all intruders of his own sex. It is not until the season 
is so far advanced that the temperature of water is considerably reduced, 
that the operation of depositing the ova commences. This takes place ia 
the months of October and November, and is sometimes delayed even as 
late as the latter part of December. The mode in which the ova are depos- 
ited is minutely described by Mr. Andrew Young, whose words I use in the 
following descriptiou of this interesting operation. 

" The spawning bed," says Mr. Young, " which may be called a continu- 
ation of nests, is never fashioned transversely or across the water current, 
but straight against it. The way the bed is formed has never before been 
accurately des3ribed. Some have affirmed that the male fiah is the sole 
architect; others that the female does all the work; others again, that the 
tail is the only delving implement employed; and others write that the bed- 
trenches are dug across the stream. A salmon spawning-bed is con- 
structed thus : — The fish having paired, chosen their spot for bed-making, 
and being ready to lie-in, they drop down stream a little, and then rushing 



52 

back with velocity toward the spot selected, they dart their heads into the 
gravel, burrowing with their snouts into it. This burrowing action, assisted 
by the powers of the fins, is performed with great force, and the water's 
current aiding, the upper part or roof of the excavation is removed. The 
burrowing process is continued until a first nest is dug sufficiently capacious 
for a first deposition of ova. Then the female enters this first hollow link 
of the bed, and deposits therein a portion of her ova. That done, she re- 
tires down stream, and the male instantly takes her place, and pouring, by 
emission, a certain quantity of milt over the deposited ova, impregnates 
them. After this the fish commence a second excavation, immediately 
above the first, and in a straight line with it. In making the excavations 
they relieve one another. When one fish grows tired of its work, it drops 
down stream until it is refreshed, and then, with renovated powers, resumes 
its labors, relieving at the same time its partner. The partner acts in the 
same spirit, and so their labor progresses by alternate exertion. The sec- 
ond bed completed, the female enters it as she did the first, again deposit- 
ing a portion of ova, and drops a little down stream. The male forthwith 
enters the excavation and impregnates the ova in it. The diff"erent nests 
are not made on the same day but on different days progressively. The 
ova in the first are covered with gravel and sand, dug from the second, be- 
ing carried into it chiefly by the action of the current. The excavating 
process just described is day by day continued, until the female has no more 
ova to deposit. The last deposition of ova is covered in by the action of 
the fish and water, breaking down some of the gravel crust above and over 
the nest. Thus is formed a complete spawning-bed, not at once, not by 
a single efibrt, but piecemeal, and at several intervals, of greater or less du- 
ration, according to the age or size of the fish, and quantity of ova to be 
deposited." As soon as the operation of spawning is completed, the sal- 
mon drop do^\n into some deeper pool, where they remain quiet awhile, un- 
til they have somewhat recovered from the exhausting process of procrea- 
tion. At this time they are lean, out of condition, and quite unfit for food. 
They mostly return slowly down the river to the sea, during the same au- 
tumn — though some probably remain in the fresh water through the whole 
winter. 

The time required for the eggs to hatch depends upon the temperature of 
the water. Mr. Shaw ascertained that this time is about 

114 days, with the water at 36 degrees, 
101 " *' " 43 

90 " ** " 45 " 



This was in the open air, in natural streams, and exposed to tlie ordinary 
influence of the atmosphere and weather. Tlie length of time may be di- 
minished, as will be shown hereafter, by artificial hatching. 

When first excluded from the egg the young fish measures about half an 
inch in length, and for the first thirty days of its existence it is nourished 
by the yolk of the egg, which adheres to its belly. Their appearance and 
growth are thus described by Mr. Sh.iw : " On its first exclusion, the little 
fish has a very singular appearance. The head is large in proportion to the 
body, which is exceedingly small, and measures about five-eighths of an inch 
in length, of a pale blue or peach-blossom color. But the most singular part 
of the fish is the conical bag-like appendage which adheres by its base to the 
abdjmen. This bag is about two-eighths of an inch in length, of a beautiful 
transparent red, very much resembling a light red currant, and, in conse- 
quence of its color, may be seen at the bottom of the water, when the fish 
itself can with difficulty be perceived. The body, also, presents another 
singular appearance, namnly, a fin or fringe, resembling that of the tail of 
the tadpole, which runs from the dorsal and anal fins to the termination ot 
the ta 1, and is slightly indented. This little fish does not leave the gravel 
immeuiately after its exclusion from the egg, but remains for several weeks 
beneath it, with the bag attached and containing a supply of nourishment, 
on the same principle, no doubt, as the umbilical vesicle is known to nourish 
other embryo animals. By the end of fifty days, the bag contracted and 
disappeared, The fin, or tadpole-like fringe, also disappeared, by dividing 
itself into the dorsal, adipose and anal fins, all of which then become per- 
fectly developed." The fish then acquires the transverse bands which char- 
acterize it as a parr, and continues slowly to increase in size until the suc- 
ceeding spring, or until it becomes a year old. It then assumes a silvery 
hue, loses the markings of its parr state, and becomes what is called a smolt 
— having grown to a length of about six inches. During the same summer, 
or when they arc fourteen or fifteen months old, the salmon smolts proceed 
down the river to the sea. After this their growth is exceedingly rapid. By 
means of marking a large number of smolts, by twisting small pieces of wire 
into their dorsal fins, Mr. Shaw ascertained that the same fish, which in the 
spring are in a state of smolts, weighing five or six ounces, and measurino- 
six or seven inches in length, return from the soa into the rivers the same 
autumn, weighing from two to eight pounds, in which state they are called 
grilse. lu the same manner he found that the same fish which he had taken 
as grilse in the autumn, returned to the river the next summer as full 
grown salmon, weighing from eighteen to thirty pounds. These facts arc 



54 

also well substantiated by other observers, and Mr. iTarrell, even states that 
smolts marked in April or early in May, have been retaken by the end of 
June, weighing two or three pounds or upwards. 

Those who may desire to read more than can be comprehended in this 
brief notice, of the natural mode of reproduction in the case of the salmon, 
and of the habits of that fish, I would refer to the article on salmon in 
Yarrell's British Fishes, Vol. ii, p. 1 ; as also to " Lessons on the Natural 
History and habits of the Salmon," by " Ephemera," reprinted in Fry's 
work on Artificial Fish Breeding. 

It will be perceived, by the facts just stated, that the conditions favorable 
to the production and growth of the salmon, — and, indeed, to that of all 
anadromous fishes, — that is, such as run from the sea up the rivers to de- , 
posit their spawn, are as follows: 

1. There must be a free passage allowed to the fish, so that they can 
reach, without obstruction, those places in the small streams which they nat- 
urally select as spawning beds. 

2. They must also be allowed a free passage downward again to the sea, 
in order to complete their growth. 

3. The fish should not be taken, before they arrive at such a state of 
maturity as to be capable of propagating their species. 

4. They should not be taken at that season of the year when they are 
about to deposit their spawn, — nor should they be taken immediately after 
spawning. These conditions will be found to be of much importance in con- 
sidering what legislative enactments should be required and enforced, in or- 
der to miijintain a supply of this class of fishes. 

Let us now turn to artificial propagation. And, in the first place, I give 
a short account of Jacobi's experiments, which, as 1 have already mentioned, 
are entitled to great consideration, as being the first of the kind, so far as 
recorded. 

The' mode in which the salmon and trout deposit and fecundate their spawn, 
in the natural state, was known to him, — and for his first experiments he 
collected a quantity of the impregnated ova from the spawning bed. He 
afterward imitated, artificially, this moie of natural propagation, by captur- 
ing a pair of salmon at their spawning bed, pressing the ova from the 
female into a vessel of water, and then pressing the milt from the male in 
the same way. "A pint of very clear water," he says, " is poured into a 
nice clean vessel, such as a wooden bucket, or shallow tub; a female salmon 
is then taken by the head and held over it ; if the eggs have come to matu- 
rity they will fall into it ; if not, by pressing the belly lightly with the palm 



of the hand, they can be made to do so. The male fish is then treated in 
the same manner. When from the male enough milt has been pressed out 
to whiten the surface of the water, the operation of fecundating the eggs is 
complete." But in order to make a practical application of his experiments, 
he prepared beforehand, to receive the fecundated eggs, long hatching boxes, 
in the arrangements of which were combined all the conditions with which 
he had observed the females to surround their spawn when dopo.-itcd at the 
bottom of streams. His hatching apparatus he thus describes : " The box 
may be constructed of any suitable size, — for example, eleven feet long, a 
foot and a half wide, and six inches high. At one extremity should be left 
an opening six inches square, covered b}' a grating of iron or brass wire, 
the wires not being more than four lines apart. At the other cxtremit}', on 
the side of the box, should be made a similar opening six inches wide by 
four inches high, similarly grated ; this one will serve for the escape of the 
water, the other for its entrance, and the gratings will prevent water-rats, or 
any destructive insects, from reaching the eggs. The top of the box should 
be closely shut for the same reason, but a grated opening, similar to the 
rest, six inches square, may be left to give light to the young fish ; this, 
however, is not absolutely necessary. A suitable place should then be cho- 
sen for the box, near a rivulet, or what is better, near a pond supplied with 
running water, from which may be drawn by a little canal a stream, say an 
inch thick, which should be made to pass continually through the gratings 
and through the box. Lastly, the bottom of the box to the thickness of an 
inch, should be covered with sand or gravel, and on this should be spread a 
bed of stones of the size of nuts or acorns." In this artificial brook, " the 
fecundated eggs are spread, in one of the boxes so placed, and the water of 
the little rivulet passes over them, care being taken that it does not run 
with such rapidity as to displace and carry away with it the eggs, for it is 
necessary they should remain undisturbed between the pebbles." After 
Jacobi had thus scattered the fecundated eggs on the bottom of this artifi- 
cial rivulet, he carefully watched all the varied phases of their development, 
with a view of discovering any hidden obstacle to the success of the experi- 
ment. He found thut the time necessary for incubation varied with the 
temperature, — that it required a much longer time when the water was cold 
than when it was moderately warm. He found, too, that a sediment is de 
posited on the eggs which is hurtful or destructive if allowed to remain, and 
to remedy this difficulty, he cleaned them by brushing them with the feather 
end of a quill. After the birth of the young fish, he preserved them in the 
breeding boxes until the umbilical bladder was absorbed, and then allowed 



56 

them to run into the brook. The whole of Jacobi's experiments were char- 
acterized with great good sense, and were performed with much ingenuity. 
He demonstrates the practicability of stocking waters, hitherto unproductive, 
with all species offish suited to them, and shows that his method, thus ap- 
plied might become a source of great profit. The first trials of his plan 
were made near Nortelem, in the kingdom of Hanover, and he perfectly 
succeeded in rearing to maturity considerable numbers of trout. The Eng- 
lish government, it is pleasant to mention, rewarded the ingenuity and per- 
severance of Jacobi, by granting him a pension. 

As I have before stated, however, the knowledge of these experiments 
seems to have perished with their author, — or, at least was only preserved 
amoncf the annals of science, — and no practical use was made of them, even 
by scientific men, until public attention was called to them by Mr. Shaw 
and Mr. Boccius, in special reference to the multiplication of salmon, 
which valuable species had begun seriously to dimiuish in Great Britain. 

The observations of Mr. Shaw on the reproduction of salmon in their nat- 
ural state have already been alluded to. He also made some expei-iments, 
on a limited scale, inartificial fecundation, and succeeded in hatching and 
preserving the young fish in ponds. The practical results of his experiments 
were carried to a considerable extent, in 1841, by 3Ir. Boccius an engineer 
at Hammersmith. He succeeded, by means of artificial propagation, in 
stockir.g the streams of gentlemen in several parts of England with trout. 
On the estate of Mr. Drummond, near Uxbridg:^, that of the Duke of De- 
vonshire, at Chatsworth, and other places, he practised the art with success. 

At about the same period, the remarkable operations of M. M. Kemy and 
Gehin, in artificial fish-raising attracted tlie attention of the scientific men 
of France, and led to more extensive experiments than hfd yet been under- 
taken in any other part of the world. 

These two men, fishermen by occupation, succeeded, in a few years, in 
stocking most of the streams in their department. They had never heard 
of any previous experiments of the kind, but, having found that the trout, 
for which the streams in the neighborhood had been famous, had greatly 
decreased in number, they attempted to invent a remedy for the evil. They 
discovered that a large proportion of the spawn deposited in the bed of the 
streams failed to prove productive, having been devoured b}'' other fishes, or 
buried in the mud. They then reflected that if they could collect the eggs, 
see them properly fecundated, place them in such a position as would pre- 
vent their destruction, and secure the young fishes from injury, the supply 



67 

■would be greatly increased. They accordingly put in operation the process 
which has already been described, of pressing the eggs from the female, and 
mixing them with the milt of the male. They then deposited theeggs on a 
layer of gravel, in a box pierced with holes, and fixed it, in the bed of a 
flowing stream. After the young fish were hatched, they kept them in small 
reservoirs, till they were able to take care of themselves, and then turned 
them into their streams. They had already stocked several rivers, when 
the government took them into its service, and assisted them to apply their 
system on a large scale. Subsequently, the government made a large ap- 
propriation, and appointed agents to erect and superintend an establishment 
for fish culture at Hunnigen. 

This establishment went into operation in 1852, and in six months had 
artificially fecundated 3,302,000 eggs, and produced 1,683,000 living fish — 
600,000 of which were trout and salmon. From this place the young fish 
or fecundated eggs have been sent to all parts of France, and distributed in 
the waters where they are needed. The eggs are packed for transportation 
in wooden boxes between layers of moist sand, and experience has shown 
that they may be carried in this way to almost any distance, without injury. 
Instead of the hatching boxes used by Jacobi, the eggs arc deposited upon 
fine willow hurdles, or shallow baskets, which are placed in troughs filled 
with water, through which a gentle stream is constantly kept running. This 
process is carried on within doors, in rooms the temperature of which can be 
properly regulated. The young fish are turned into ponds, where they are 
fed until of proper age to be transported to the waters in which they are 
destined to find a home. The apparatus required is so simple and cheap 
that it can be put up on a sufficiently large scale in the conservatory, or 
even in the kitchen of any gentleman who desires to apply the process to the 
stocking of his own pond. Without occupying further space in describing 
the details of this process, I refer the reader who is curious to know more 
«bout it, to the "Complete Treatise on Artificial Fish Breeding," by \V. II. 
Fry, published by Appleton & Co., which contains translations of the reports 
made on this subject to the French government, and the mode pursued in 
England. I may add, however, that I have myself seen t'le entire success 
of experiments of this kind, made by Drs. Garlick and Ackley, at Cleveland, 
Ohio ; and that, during the past winter, Mr. E. C. Kellogg, of Hartford, had 
succeeded in raising a considerable number of trout in his own cellar, by 
means of a small stream of Connecticut River water, and a trough divided 
into compartments, and filled with gravel, upon which the eggs are placed. 



58 

Takino- it for granted, then, that the process of artificial fish-breeding is 
practicable and easily applied, even on an extensive scale, I desire now to 
show that with proper legislation and moderate expense, our own beautiful 
rivers may be re-stocked in a few years with that noblest of fish, the salmon. 

And, in the first place, as to the causes which have operated entirely to 
destroy the salmon or to drive it from our waters. It is well known that 
within the memory of man, that even as late as within fifty years, no river 
in the world was more celebrated lor the numbers and the quality of its sal- 
mon, than the Connecticut. And it is equally well known that at the pre- 
sent time they have entirely forsaken that river. The same gradual pro- 
cess of extinction is going on in all the rivers to the northward. In the 
British Provinces, where, until quite recently, salmon have been exceedingly 
abundant, their great diminution in numbers within a few years past, has 
excited inquiry as to its causes, and has led to the enactment of laws for its 
prevention. Much has been written, and many speculations indulged in, as 
to the reasons of the desertion of our rivers by this noble fish. It has been 
attributed to the turmoil of the waters caused by the running of steamboats, 
to the building of towns on the banks, to the noise of mill-wheels, and the poi- 
soning of the streams by saw-dust and bark. All these causes, however, have 
been fully proved to have had comparatively little effect upon the migration of 
these fishes. The limits of this paper will not allow me to state the evidence on 
which this assertion is founded — it is enough to say that the result complained 
of is now satisfactorily demonstrated to be mainly due to other circumstances. 
Among them, the most impoitant of all is the erection of dams and other 
obstacles to the ascent of the fish to their breeding places in the smaller and 
clearer tributaries to the main rivers. If the fish are unable to reach those 
clear and gravelly streams where they find the conditions requisite to the 
hatching of their ova, they are compelled to deposit their spawn in the wider 
and more turbid waters below, where it becomes covered up with mud, is 
washed away, devoured by other fish, and fails to become productive. The 
annual supply of young fishes is thus diminished, while at the same time 
the capture of the adults is continued by every means which the ingenuity 
of the fisherman can invent. It is found, too, that salmon, after being thus 
repeatedly prevented from following the instincts which lead them to deposit 
their spawn, will cease to make the attempt, and will no more return to the 
same river. This process of destruction is now actually going on in the 
British provinces. In a most admirable report made in 1852, on the fish- 
eries of New Brunswick, by M. H. Perley, Esq., of Saint John, instances 



59 

are mentioned on almost every page where allusion is made to the salmon 
fisheries, of streams in which, before the erection of dams, salmon abounded, 
but in which at the present time, none are found. 

Que of the most important measures to, be taken then, for the preservation 
of these fishes, is the opening of suitable fish-ways in all dams, across the 
streams which they frequent. Such fish-ways can be constructed at a small 
expense to the individual dam-owners, and with very little efiect on the head 
of water maintained. In most parts of Great Britain, the construction of 
these fish-ways is made compulsory — and laws have been enacted for the 
same purpose in the British provinces. In Scotland and elsewhere a kind of 
fish-ladder is sometimes used, which consists of a broad trough of wood sloping 
down from the top of the dam to the ground below, and divided by partitions 
carried partly across, in such a manner as to check the mpetus of the water 
and give the fish resting places on their ascent. To show the effect of suitable 
fish-ways on the supply of salmon, I quote a single case among many others, 
mentioned by Mr. Perley. Referring to the Saint Croix River, he says : "Up 
to 1825, the dams were provided with fish-ways, and while these were main- 
tained the fisheries on the river did not diminish ; but in that year the 
Union dam, (the lowermost.) was built without a fish-way, and the fisheries 
instantly fell off, continuing to diminish ever since, and now they can 
scarcely be said to exist. In 1846 the Union dam was swept away by a 
great flood, and fish got up the river; for two years after there was very 
good fishing, but the rebuilding of the dam again put a stop to it." In case 
then of an attempt to restore the salmon to the waters of Connecticut, the 
first requisite for success would be the opening of the dams. Other regula- 
tions, affecting the time, method and place of capture, would be also neces- 
ary. The plan which I would propose then, is briefly as follows: 

1. Let the Legislature of Connecticut appoint a commissioner or commis- 
sioners, whose duty it shall be to employ suitable persons to carry out the 
details of the plan proposed. 

2. During the present summer, and before the spawning season of sal- 
mon, let the principal rivers of the State, the Connecticut, the Thames, the 
Housatonic, and their tributaries, be examined, with reference to the selec- 
tion of proper places for breeding the fish, and let hatching boxes, small 
ponds for the reception of the young fish, and all the necessary apparatus 
for artificial breeding be prepared. 

3. At the spawning season, that is, in November and December, let the 
persons charged with this duty, proceed to the rivers at the northward in 



GO 

Maine and the Britisli Provinces, where salmon are still abundant, and 
procure as large a supply of the impregnated ova as possible, to be transport- 
ed by the means already indicated, and to be deposited in the hatching box- 
es, the process of incubation to be watched during the winter. Or arrange- 
ments might be made with persons in the vicinity of salmon rivers, for a 
supply of salmon-fry in the spring, whch could be transported in hogsheads 
of water, and placed in the ponds made for the purpose. In either case, 
the young fishes would be kept in ponds until the spring of the succeeding 
year, an 1 then allowed to proceed into the rivers. 

4. The renewal of these operations during each year for four or five 
years, for the purpose of keeping up a supply of the stock, until the salmon 
have become adult, and have commenced their migrations up the rivers. 

5. An enactment compelling all proprietors of dams to construct 
proper fish-ways, within a certain time after the passage of the act — the fish- 
ways to be approved by the commissioners. Although the immediate pas- 
sage of such an act would be of immense benefit to the shad and other fish- 
eries on our rivers, yet it need not go into operation for the purposes eonteni- 
plated here, until the young salmon are turned into the rivers. 

6. The prohibition under a heavy penalty of tuking salmon in any waters 
of this State for the period of four or five years, in order to give the fish an 
opportunity of breeding two or three times, before any are allowed to be 
killed. 

7. The prohibition forever of taking salmon between the months of Octo- 
ber and April, or while they are at their spawning places, or within half a 
mile of any dam or fish-way over which they are compelled to pass on their 
migrations. 

8. The prohibition of the placing of permanent nets across the main 
channel of the rivers, or extending more than one-third of the distance from 
either shore. 

Upon referring to the " Act for Encouraging aiid Regulating Fisheries," 
Eevised Statutes, Title XVII., it will be found that enactments already ex- 
ist, which embody several of the most important of the above conditions, 
and which, if extended to all the waters of the State, and rig-rously en- 
forced, will render necessary little additional legislation, after the salmon 
shall be once introduced into the rivers. The regulations contained in the act 
referred to, regarding the construction of fish-ways in dams, the time and 
manner of fishing, and the penalties imposed, are entirely judicious, but are 
mostly restricted to certain individual rivers. Little more would be needed 



61 

than to make the same regulations applicable to every stream iu which 
salmon should be taken. 

Upon conditions similar to those mentioned, the Natural History Society 
of New Jersey, have offered to stock with salmon the I'assaic, the Hudson, 
and the Delaware Rivers. "Whether thoy have actual!}'- connnenced opera- 
tions, I am not inlbrmed. There can however be no reasonable doubt of 
the success of the i)lan, provided the protection required is afforded. The 
amount to be appropriated by the State, to pay the expenses of construct- 
ing breeding places, and transporting the ova or the } oung fishes, would be 
tiifling indeed, compared with the successful result which may be anticipa- 
ted. Probably two or three thousand dollars would be an ample sum. 
Should this not be sufficient, individual subscriptions could undoubtedly be 
obtained to make up any deficiency, as soon as the preliminary steps are 
taken by the legislature. The plan which I have thus briefly indicated, 
presents so few difficulties, and will be productive of so much good, if car- 
rid out, that I feel confident that it only needs to be brought to the notice 
of a wise legislature, in order to receive the attention which it deserves. 
As soon as the initiatory steps are taken by our own State, the legislatures 
of Massachusetts, Vermont and New Hampshire, will undoubtedly adopt 
measures to apply similar enactments to those portions of our rivers which 
are within their jurisdiction. Indeed, the legislature of Massachusetts has 
already appointed a commissioner to inquire into a report upon the practi- 
cability of applying the processes of fi^^h-raising to the waters of that State. 
Nothing could be eaiser, after our own legislature has taken the requisite 
action, than to have a meeting of agents from each of the four states con- 
cerned, fur consultation upon the adoption of a concerted plan 
of operations. I need hardly add a single word in regard to the immense 
benefit which would follow the re-cstablishment of the salmon fishery in this 
State. It is well known to dealers in fish, that the salmon is more high- 
ly esteemed as an article of food, and brings a higher price in tlie market 
than any other — ranging from thirty cents to one dollar per pound. Sup- 
pose then, that in the course of five years, at an expense of less than 
two thousand dollars a 3'ear, 200,000 salmon could be made to inhabit our 
waters. This number would be quadrupled at least, if the operations 
should be even moderately successful — but taking the lowest estimate, and 
allowing for all contingencies, let us see what amount of pecuniary profit 
would result. Of those 200,000 salmon, suppose that one-fourth, or 50,000, 
should be taken and sold during the first year after fishing is allowed. The 



62 

averuge wci;fht of full grown salmon may be stated at ten pounds, which 
would give 500,000 pounds, which at 25 cents per pound, a lower price 
than they are ever sold for at present, would be worth not less than 
§125,000. Deducting all possible expenses, the profit could not less than 
$100,000. This profit would increase each succeeding year, provided ihe 
regulations for the protection of the fi.sheries were properly enforced. To 
show that the estimate of the number of salmon made in the iibove calcula- 
tion is an exceedingly low one, I may mention that in the river Saint Croix 
alone, to which I have before alluded, the avtrage number of salmon 
taken at a single place was for many years two hundred per day, for 
three months in each season, or 18,000 fish during the year. To illustrate 
the benefits of a proper system of protection, I may also add here, that the 
produce of a small river in Ireland has been, by the enforcement of Parlia- 
mentary regulations, raised in three years, from half a ton, or at most a ton 
every season, to eight tons for the season ending the third year ; and that in 
the case of another Irish river, the Foyle, the annual produce has been 
raised from forty thiee tons, to nearly three hundred tons. At the end of 
ten years then, after the first salmon fry shall be turned into our waters, 
Ave may safely estimate the annual value of the fishery to this State, at from 
a quarter to half a million ot dollars, even allowing for the reduced prices 
which would be the consequence of such a supply. Surely the anticipation 
of so splendid a result ought to influence us in speedily preparing the means 
for its attainment. 



INDE} 





Page. 


Birds and small quadrupeds useful by destroying insects, 




11 


Breeding, artificial, of fish in China, 


A pp. 


15 


" " " " England, 




23 


«« " " " France, 




24 


«« " " " Germany, 




20 


" " " " Middle ages. 


11 «' 


17 


'« " '« " among Eomans, 




16 


'< " " " in Sweden, 




19 


Chase, advantages of sports of. 




8 


Clearing soil, effects of, 




18 


Comstock on Pisciculture, 


App. 


48 


Constitutional restrictions, 




16 


Co-operation -with other states difficult, 




16 


Eggs or spawn offish. 




23 


" *' " impregnation of. 


22, 


35 


" hatching of. 


34, 


37 


Enemies, natural, offish, 




80 


Fish artificially fattened, inferiority of, 




18 


" former abundance of, 




12 


'• diminution of, and causes, 




18 


*[ natural food of. 




16 


•• naturalization of. 




19 


" migrations of. 




26 


" essays on artificial breeding of, by Fry and Garlick, 




19 


by Prof. Vogt, 




22 


" " •' Haimes, 


App. 


10 



IN DUX. 

Fish, essay by Kellogg, App. 41 

'« feeding of fry, 41 

" growtli of 43 

Game animals, extirpation of, 9 

Game-laAvs obnoxious and ineffectual, IG, 17 

Governor's letter to Speaker House of Representatives, 4 

Haimes on Pisciculture, lO 

Joint Resolution relative to artificial propagation offish, 3 

Kellogg's Experiments on fish-breeding, 41 

Report of Committee of Legislature under 4th Joint Rule, 6 

" of Geo. P. Marsh on artificial propagation of fish, 7 

" of Committee of Legislature of Massachusetts, App. 1 

Spawning of fish, 27 

Streams, change iii character of. 14 



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